Florida couple face ‘shocking’ 700+ counts in Alabama of abuse against fostered, adopted children
A couple living in southwest Florida have been charged in Alabama with 727 counts of sexual crimes and physical abuses against their 11 adopted and foster children, law enforcement officials in both states told FloridaPolitics.com Friday. Police in both states are calling it the most shocking case they’ve ever seen. “I’ve been working sex crimes involving kids for 12 years and this is by far the worst I’ve had so far,” Detective Keith Johnson, of the Florence Police Department in Lauderdale County, Alabama, said by telephone Friday. Daniel and Jenise Spurgeon, 47 and 53, respectively, are being held without bond in the Lee County Jail in Fort Myers, Florida. None of the children in the Spurgeon’s care came from Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF), according to DCF spokeswoman Jessica Sims. “It’s important to note that there were no Florida foster children placed in the home with the family,” she emphasized. “Further information cannot be disclosed per section 39.202, Florida Statutes, which provides confidentiality to child victims of abuse or neglect. Any questions regarding the original placement of the children and services for the adopted/foster children should be directed to Alabama’s child services agency.” Sims noted DCF opened a child protective investigation in July concerning the allegations regarding this family. All children in the home were immediately taken into protective custody, she said. “The adopted and foster children in the home were placed with the family while they lived in Alabama,” she further clarified. “Since the foster children were in the process of being adopted, they were allowed to move with the family from Alabama to Florida under the federal Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children.” Police originally learned of the case when they responded to a tip of two minors at a Cape Coral bar who were inebriated last July, claiming their parents had forced them to drink alcohol, according to documents provided to FloridaPolitics.com. During the interviews with the two intoxicated minors, Cape Coral Police investigators learned that four girls under the Spurgeon’s care were claiming they’d been sexually abused and were from Alabama. “That’s when I got a call from the Cape Coral police,” Johnson said. “It’s taken this long to get everything done because the children had to be interviewed (on video) in Florida and I had to review each one, and before I charge someone with a sex crime I’ve got to make sure that there’s no doubt.” Daniel Spurgeon has remained in the Lee County Jail since his original arrest. The number of counts stemming from Alabama alone total 415 and include multiple counts of sodomy in the first degree (4), sexual torture (4), sexual abuse of a child under 12 (2), sexual abuse in the first degree (115), child abuse (122), sexual torture (4), rape in the first degree (6), domestic violence by strangulation and/or suffocation (3), incest (6), human trafficking in the first degree (11) and enticing a child for immoral purposes (115). That does not include Florida’s charges. His charges in the 20th Judicial Circuit of Florida, as represented by state’s attorney Stephen B. Russell, are as follows: One count sexual battery of a victim under 12; four counts lewd and lascivious behavior against a minor; one count sexual assault of a victim under 12; 11 counts aggravated child abuse. “They’ve got similar charges down there (in Florida), but we’ve got more because they were here longer,” Johnson said. Daniel Spurgeon is a native Alabamian, while Jenise Spurgeon was from “somewhere up north,” the investigator said. Originally arrested in July, too, then released, and then arrested again Wednesday per a warrant issued by Johnson in Alabama. She is charged in Alabama with multiple counts of child abuse (100), domestic violence by strangulation (1), human trafficking in the first degree (11), endangering the welfare of a child (100) and enticing a child for immoral purposes (100). Her charges in the 20th Judicial Circuit of Florida are as follows: one count out-of-state fugitive from justice; 10 counts aggravated child abuse. It’s unknown if the state’s attorney office plans on filing more charges. A call placed to his office was not immediately returned. Children’s Network of Southwest Florida claimed the children went almost six months without monthly checkups from a state agency because Alabama never notified them that the family moved to their state. It is unclear if Children’s Network of Southwest Florida is trying to deflect blame, but calls to clarify their claim to the Alabama Dept. of Human Resources — the agency tasked with child welfare in that state — were not immediately returned before this article was published. The Spurgeon’s will be extradited to Alabama, Johnson said, but it is not clear when. When they are brought to Alabama, the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office will be handling the case, not Cape Coral, officials in both states said. The Alabama charges against the pair stem from sex late 2007 to 2015, when they moved to Florida. Johnson would not confirm if it is a crime in Alabama to leave the state with foster children, but considering the human trafficking charges against the couple it most likely is a crime. However, he noted the adopted children would remain in Florida while the foster children would be brought back to Alabama, though part of his statement conflicted with that of Sims from DCF. FloridaPolitics.com is still waiting on information on whether Florida prosecutors will hold on to the couple to try them in the Sunshine State before allowing their extradition to Alabama for judicial proceedings there.
Martin Dyckman: What have we become in the time of Trump?
A young woman who works at a store that we frequent told of a recent experience that haunts my mind, as I hope it will yours. She and her husband were homebound from a European vacation. As the aircraft waited on the tarmac at Amsterdam’s airport, an announcement told three named passengers to identify themselves to a flight attendant. Every name, she noted, sounded Middle Eastern. Each was asked to produce a passport, even though all the passengers had had theirs inspected at least twice before boarding. A young man near her was one of those singled out. As he stood to retrieve his bag from the overhead bin, she saw that his hands were trembling. She wondered whether he would even be able to handle the bag. A flight attendant checked the passport and left him alone. He took his seat, still shaking. “Are you all right?” she asked him. “I am an American,” he said. “I was born here.” So that is what we have come to in the time of Trump. Concurrently, wire services reported that Khizr Khan, the Gold Star parent who denounced Donald Trump at the Republican convention and challenged him to read the U.S. Constitution, had canceled a speaking engagement in Canada after being told, or so it was said, that “his travel privileges are being reviewed.” His son, Captain Humayun Khan, was protecting his troops in Iraq when he was killed by a suicide bomber. “This turn of events is not just of deep concern to me but to all my fellow Americans who cherish our freedom to travel abroad. I have not been given any reason as to why,” Kahn said. The statement did not say who told him about it. The cancellation was announced on the same day as Trump signed a new travel ban targeting Muslims abroad. The speech Khan had been scheduled to give in Toronto was on the subject of “tolerance, understanding, unity and the rule of law.” Khan, a native of Pakistan, has been an American citizen for more than 30 years. There is no legal ground for the government to restrict travel of a citizen who is not accused of crime. A statement from an unnamed Customs and Border Patrol official, quoted by POLITICO, declined to comment on the specific report but asserted that the agency doesn’t contact travelers in advance of their foreign trips. It hinted, however, that questions might have been raised about Kahn having or having applied for trusted traveler status, which speeds up airport security checks. We need to know more about this. Was it only a rumor that reached Kahn? Was it a misunderstanding? Or something more sinister? In any event, it was reasonable for Kahn to be concerned in the time of Trump. Now imagine, if you will, the terror of that young man aboard the airplane multiplied millions of times by Americans with dark skins or foreign-sounding names now that ICE — Immigration and Customs Enforcement — agents are on a rampage. It’s about American citizens, not just immigrants who are unauthorized. It’s no longer about targeting only those who commit serious crimes — which they do less frequently than legal residents. It’s about expelling everyone that ICE and its allies in some police agencies can get their hands on. Even Dreamers, those brought here as children, whom a humane president had promised to suspect, are being swept up. There are an estimated 11 million of these vulnerable people, by the way and they are your neighbors. They could be the people who built your house, picked the fruit for your breakfast, and tidied up the hotel room where you last stayed. Think of our country without them. It will be a different country if Trump has his way, and it won’t be a better one. The statistics are sobering. According to a draft paper published in November by the National Bureau of Economic Research, unauthorized immigrants account for about 3 percent of our gross domestic product (GDP). Take that away, and it spells recession. They represent 18 percent of the workforce in agriculture, 13 percent of construction employment, and 10 percent of the leisure and hospitality sector. They’re particularly significant to the economies of five states: California, Texas, New York, Illinois and, yes, Florida. The report’s authors, professors at Queens College of the City University of New York, calculated that if their presence were legalized, their contribution to GDP would increase, significantly, to 3.6 percent. It would no longer be easy for unscrupulous employers to exploit them. “Documented foreign-born workers,” they added, “are about 25 percent more productive … with the same levels of education and experience,” as the undocumented. Legal workers would not replace most of them. A 2013 North Carolina study noted that “natives prefer almost any labor market outcome … to carrying out menial harvest and planting labor.” Here, from The New York Times, are some other pertinent facts: About 60 percent of the 11-million have been here 10 years or more. Many are homeowners. A third of those 15 or older live with at least one child born here, who has citizenship by birth. (Where will the foster care be for so many Trump orphans?) The proportion of the estimated 300,000 with felony records is half the rate of felons in the overall population. Illegal border crossings are declining; a growing number of unauthorized immigrants simply overstayed their visas. The 11 million are here, for the most part, because America has needed their labor and the taxes they pay. The entire nation collectively turned a willfully blind eye to the underlying illegality, just as it did during Prohibition. Every president before now has tried to reform the situation in a humane way. Only now is one catering to a minority — and they are a minority — who vote their hatreds instead of the religions they profess. A young citizen trembling on a plane. A prominent naturalized citizen who fears to travel. Parents
US commander signals larger, longer US presence in Syria
The top U.S. commander in the Middle East signaled Thursday that there will be a larger and longer American military presence in Syria to accelerate the fight against the Islamic State group and quell friction within the complicated mix of warring factions there. Gen. Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Central Command, told senators Thursday that he will need more conventional U.S. forces to insure stability once the fight to defeat Islamic State militants in their self-declared capital of Raqqa is over. The U.S. military, he said, can’t just leave once the fight is over because the Syrians will need help keeping IS out and ensuring the peaceful transition to local control. Votel’s testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee comes as up to 400 U.S. forces have moved into Syria in recent days. Well more than half of those are Marines, bringing in large artillery guns for the Raqqa fight, and the rest are Army Rangers who went into northern Syria to tamp down skirmishes between Turkish and Syrian forces near the border. The numbers have been fluctuating, often on a daily basis, as troops move in and out. “I think as we move towards the latter part of these operations into more of the stability and other aspects of the operations, we will see more conventional forces requirements,” Votel said. Until recently, the U.S. military presence in Syria was made up of special operations forces advising and assisting the U.S.-backed Syrian troops. It will be critical, Votel said, to get humanitarian aid, basic working services and good local leaders in place in Raqqa so that businesses can return and the city can move on. He also told senators that the U.S. is looking for options to ease the tensions with Turkey over the plan to use U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds in the fight to oust Islamic State fighters from Raqqa. But he offered no details on what those options could be. The U.S. is considering arming the Syrian Kurdish forces, which the Pentagon considers the most effective fighters against IS militants in northern and eastern Syria. But Turkey, a key NATO ally, considers the Syrian force, known as the YPG, a terrorist organization. Turkey wants to work with other Syrian opposition fighters known as the Free Syrian Army to liberate Raqqa. Pentagon leaders sent a new plan to defeat IS to the White House late last month that included a variety of options for the ongoing fight in Iraq and Syria. The White House hasn’t yet approved the plans, but the recent deployments into Syria suggest that President Donald Trump may be leaning toward giving the Pentagon greater flexibility to make routine combat decisions in the IS fight. Military commanders frustrated by what they considered micromanagement under the previous administration have argued for greater freedom to make daily decisions on how best to fight the enemy In separate comments, Votel also reaffirmed that more American forces are needed in Afghanistan, a point the top U.S. commander in that country made to Congress several weeks ago. Votel agreed that the fight against the Taliban is in a stalemate, and said “it will involve additional forces” to ensure the U.S. can better advise and assist the Afghan forces. U.S. Gen. John Nicholson, the top American commander in Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month that he needs a few thousand more troops to help end the stalemate there. And Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in recent weeks that he will make decisions soon on whether to recommend an increase in the U.S. force. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
ACLU files ethics complaint against Jeff Sessions over Senate testimony
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed an ethics complaint against Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his false testimony to the the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. The complaint, filed Thursday with the Alabama State Bar, asks the body to investigate a potential rules violation after Sessions made false statements during sworn testimony at his confirmation hearing for attorney general. In his confirmation hearing, then-Senator Sessions was asked about any contact he had with members of the Russian government and responded at the time that he “did not have any communications with the Russians.” It has since come to light that Sessions met with Russia’s ambassador to the United States on at least two occasions. “False testimony made under oath is one of the most serious ethical offenses a lawyer can make and one any state bar should investigate vigorously,” said ACLU National Political Director Faiz Shakir. “Alabamians and Americans from all walks of life should be assured that the organizations responsible for regulating lawyers in their state takes ethical violations seriously — no matter how powerful that lawyer may be.” Alabama State Bar rules state that it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to “engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.” Sessions has been a member of the bar since 1973. In the complaint, the ACLU says the report of the meetings with the Russian ambassador “does not square” with Sessions’s sworn Jan. 10 Senate testimony. “Few events are more corrosive to a democracy than having the Attorney General make false statements under oath about a matter the Justice Department is investigating,” added Christopher Anders, deputy director of the ACLU’s legislative office. “Jeff Sessions told a falsehood to the Senate, and did nothing to correct his statement until he was exposed by the press more than a month later. No attorney, whether just starting out as a new lawyer or serving as the country’s top law enforcement officer, should lie under oath. The Alabama bar must investigate this wrong fully and fairly.” The filed complaint can be read below:
HUD could face steep cuts, but Ben Carson says numbers early
Housing Secretary Ben Carson sought Thursday to reassure his agency that budget cuts may not be as steep as some fear, even as housing advocates and others brace for deep reductions to public housing and anti-poverty programs. The cuts said to be under consideration, more than $6 billion, would target community development block grants and some public housing money. The idea would be to help offset some of the $54 billion increase in defense spending that President Donald Trump is seeking. In an email Thursday to Department of Housing and Urban Development employees, the newly confirmed Carson cautioned that the budget numbers were preliminary and that “starting numbers are rarely final numbers.” “Rest assured, we are working hard to support those programs that help so many Americans, focus on our core mission, and ensure that every tax dollar is spent wisely and effectively,” wrote Carson, who was confirmed as HUD secretary late last week. The Washington Post reported late Wednesday that early numbers for fiscal year 2018 showed HUD’s overall budget being slashed about 14 percent, to $40.5 billion — including cuts of about $2 billion from public housing funds and the elimination of the Community Development Block Grant Program, which funds local improvement efforts and other programs. At his confirmation hearing in January, Carson took a softer approach toward the role of the federal government than he sometimes did on the presidential campaign trail, where he challenged Trump for the GOP nomination. When reminded that he had called for across-the-board agency spending cuts of 10 percent during the campaign, Carson told the Senate banking committee that he later modified that amount to 1 percent. He also said HUD’s rental assistance programs are “essential” to millions of Americans and said the agency had many good programs. He added, though: “We don’t want it to be way of life. … We want it to be a Band-Aid and a springboard to move forward.” New York City Council Member Ritchie Torres said public housing in his city is so financially and physically fragile that it cannot safely absorb the shock of a 14 percent reduction in HUD’s budget. “The budget cuts will lead to more public health hazards in public housing,” Torres, chair of the council’s committee on public housing, said in an interview Thursday. “It will lead to more leaking and molded conditions in public housing. It will lead to more neglect of the physical infrastructure.” In Newton, Massachusetts, Mayor Setti Warren said killing the community development block grants would be devastating to his community. “This critical program provides people with higher paying jobs, affordable housing and opportunities for children to reach their full potential,” said Warren. The block grant money has been used in Newton for infrastructure improvements to housing for seniors, open space projects in poorer neighborhoods and money for social service programs for children such as Boys & Girls Clubs. National Urban League President Marc Morial said cuts like those that are being discussed would undercut the agency’s mission. “It’s a cruel and unusual hit to say that we’re going to cut the most vulnerable citizens in America and we’re going to go spend the money on the implements of war,” Morial said. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
White House: Donald Trump unaware of Michael Flynn’s foreign agent work
President Donald Trump was not aware that his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had worked to further the interests of the government of Turkey before appointing him, the White House said Thursday. The comments came two days after Flynn and his firm, Flynn Intel Group Inc., filed paperwork with the Justice Department formally identifying him as a foreign agent and acknowledging that his work for a company owned by a Turkish businessman could have aided Turkey’s government. Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday called the action “an affirmation of the president’s decision to ask General Flynn to resign.” At the White House, asked whether Trump knew about Flynn’s work before he appointed him as national security adviser, press secretary Sean Spicer said, “I don’t believe that that was known.” Pence said in an interview later with Fox News that he also did not know about Flynn’s paid work. Flynn and his company filed the registration paperwork describing $530,000 worth of lobbying before Election Day on behalf of Inovo BV, a Dutch-based company owned by Turkish businessman Ekim Alptekin. In an interview with The Associated Press, Alptekin said Flynn did so after pressure from Justice Department officials. The filing this week was the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s first acknowledgement that his consulting business furthered the interests of a foreign government while he was working as a top adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign. Flynn’s disclosure that his lobbying — from August through November— may have benefited Turkey’s authoritarian government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan came as Flynn has drawn scrutiny from the FBI for his contacts with Russian officials. Trump fired Flynn last month for misleading Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak. In paperwork filed with the Justice Department’s Foreign Agent Registration Unit, Flynn and his firm acknowledged that his lobbying “could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey.” The lobbying contract ended after Trump’s election in November, according to the paperwork. A spokesman for Flynn, Price Floyd, said the general was not available for an interview Thursday. Floyd referred the AP to Flynn’s filing in response to questions about why he and his firm had decided to register this week. Flynn’s attorney, Robert Kelner, declined to comment through a spokesman for his law firm, Covington & Burling. The Turkish Embassy also didn’t respond to questions from the AP. Spicer said he didn’t know what Flynn had disclosed about his background and lobbying work during the White House’s vetting of him for appointment as national security adviser. Spicer said Flynn was free to do the lobbying work because it occurred while he was a private citizen. “There’s nothing nefarious about doing anything that’s legal as long as the proper paperwork if filed,” Spicer said. He declined to say whether Trump would have appointed Flynn if he had known about the lobbying. After Flynn joined the Trump administration, he agreed not to lobby for five years after leaving government service and never to represent foreign governments. Flynn’s newly disclosed lobbying would not have violated that pledge because it occurred before he joined the Trump administration in January, but the pledge precludes Flynn from ever doing the same type of work again in his lifetime. Under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, U.S. citizens who lobby on behalf of foreign governments or political entities must disclose their work to the Justice Department. Willfully failing to register is a felony, though the Justice Department rarely files criminal charges in such cases. It routinely works with lobbying firms to get back in compliance with the law by registering and disclosing their work. More than a month before Flynn was appointed as national security adviser, news accounts and Democratic senators had raised questions about potential conflicts of interest regarding Flynn’s work for the Turkish company. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., criticized Flynn’s work and late disclosure again Thursday as troubling. “Gen. Flynn’s behavior seems to be part of a larger pattern of poor judgment from members of this administration,” she said. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said in a statement that Flynn should return any foreign money he received. “This astonishing admission is more appalling evidence of foreign entanglements and conflicts of interest involving the Trump team,” he said. He said a special prosecutor should be appointed to look into ties between Trump officials and foreign governments. Alptekin told the AP that Justice Department officials had pushed for Flynn and his firm to register as foreign agents in recent weeks. He said the filing was a response to “political pressure” and he did not agree with Flynn’s decision to file the registration documents with the Justice Department. He also said that he had asked for some of his money back because of his dissatisfaction with the company’s performance. “I disagree with the filing,” he said in a phone call from Istanbul. “It would be different if I was working for the government of Turkey, but I am not taking directions from anyone in the government.” Flynn’s consulting firm had previously disclosed to Congress that it worked for Inovo BV, a Dutch-based company owned by Alptekin. But neither Flynn nor his company had previously filed paperwork with the Justice Department, which requires more extensive disclosures about work that benefits foreign governments and political interests. Flynn Intel and S.G.R. LLC Government Relations and Lobbying pressured congressional aides to investigate a cleric who Erdogan had accused of directing a botched coup last summer. The two firms orchestrated meetings with U.S. officials— including congressional staffers and Arkansas Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin, a Republican — as well as journalists. They also worked on research, informational materials and a video on the cleric, Fethullah Gulen. Flynn met privately in September in New York with two senior Turkish government officials, including the government’s ministers of foreign affairs and energy. Flynn’s company did not name the officials, but the current Turkish energy minister is Berat Albayrak,
Birmingham Councilor Lashunda Scales to host town hall on violent crime
In an effort to garner information and hear concerns from local residents, Birmingham City Councilor Lashunda Scales is hosting town hall meeting next week in the northeast Birmingham-suburb of Roebuck. The District 1 Councilor is hosting a Crime and Economics Town Hall meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, March 13 at the Northeast YMCA located at 628 Red Lane Road in Roebuck. Scales confirms panelists at the event will include Birmingham Police Department officials; Interim Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr; The Dannon Project, which provides services to at-risk populations; and former Birmingham police Chief and current outreach coordinator at the YWCA, Annetta Nunn.
Media the enemy? Donald Trump sure is an insatiable consumer
Before most people are out of bed, Donald Trump is watching cable news. With Twitter app at the ready, the man who condemns the media as “the enemy of the people” may be the most voracious consumer of news in modern presidential history. Trump usually rises before 6 a.m. and first watches TV in the residence before later moving to a small dining room in the West Wing. A short time later, he’s given a stack of newspapers — including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The Washington Post and, long his favorite, The New York Post — as well as pile of printed articles from other sources including conservative online outlets like Breitbart News. The TVs stay on all day. The president often checks in at lunch and again in the evening, when he retires to the residence, cellphone in hand. It is a central paradox of the Trump presidency. Despite his fervent media criticism, Trump is a faithful newspaper reader who enjoys jousting with reporters, an avid cable TV news viewer who frequently live-tweets what he’s watching, and a reader of websites that have been illuminated by his presidential spotlight, showcasing the at-times conspiratorial corners of the internet. No recent president has been so public about his interest in his media coverage, nor seemed so willing to mobilize the powers of the federal government based on a media report that he has just read, heard or watched. In fact, the power of Trump’s media diet is so potent that White House staffers have, to varying degrees of success, tried to limit his television watching and control some of what he reads. The president’s cable TV menu fluctuates. Fox News is a constant, and he also frequently watches CNN despite deriding it as “fake news.” Though he used to watch “Morning Joe,” a Trump aide said the president has grown frustrated with his coverage on the MSNBC program and has largely stopped. For Trump, watching cable is often an interactive experience. More than dozen times since his election, he has tweeted about what he saw on TV just minutes before. On Nov. 29, he posted about instituting potentially unconstitutional penalties for burning the American flag 30 minutes after Fox ran a segment on the subject. On Jan. 24, he threatened to “send in the Feds!” to Chicago a short time after watching a CNN segment on violence in the city. On Feb. 6, after CNN reported about a “Saturday Night Live” skit on the increasing power of the president’s advisers, Trump just 11 minutes later tweeted, “I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it!” On Tuesday, Trump tweeted five different times about the news of the day being discussed on his preferred morning show, “Fox & Friends.” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, a frequent Trump critic, told The Associated Press that she finds it “unsettling” that Trump “may be getting most of his understanding of the world based on whatever he stumbles upon on cable.” While pleased that Trump is following the media, Maddow noted that “the White House is designed as an instrument to feed the president of the United States expertly curated and highly selective, well-vetted information from every corner of the world.” Others note the president is there may be some smart politics behind Trump’s media diet. He “advertised getting his news the same way his supporters do, which helps make a connection,” said Tobe Berkovitz, a communications professor at Boston University. The president’s advisers try to curb his cable consumption during the workday. But there are no limits when he returns to the residence. He also avidly watches his own staff’s TV performances, including White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer‘s daily briefing. Aides have been known to shape their public comments to please the president or try to influence him. Trump’s consumption of cable news differs considerably from previous commanders in chief, who have at least claimed to be disconnected from the cable chatter. Jay Carney, White House press secretary under Barack Obama, has claimed that Obama “doesn’t watch cable news,” though that did not keep the former president from criticizing the medium. Where Trump differs most from his presidential predecessors is his reliance on getting news online — even though he rarely uses a computer and prefers aides to print out articles for him to read. What he was seeing on Twitter and conservative websites like the Drudge Report and the conspiracy-laden Infowars helped forge his political persona — and his public misinformation campaign questioning whether Obama was born in the United States. And social media has become a way for some news sources to gain an audience with the president. Last Thursday, as questions swirled around contacts between Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Russian ambassador, a Reddit user posted a picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin and New York Sen. Charles Schumer from a 2003 photo op. Two hours later, the blog The Gateway Pundit reprinted the photo with the headline “Where’s the Outrage?” The image careened across the internet from an Infowars editor’s post to the Drudge Report to Trump’s own Twitter account as he delivered that outrage, demanding an investigation into Schumer’s alleged ties to Putin. That wasn’t the only time last week when Trump put the White House stamp on a theory that originated on the edges of the conservative movement. Radio host Mark Levin voiced without evidence the idea that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower. That accusation was picked up the next day by Breitbart News, the site formerly run by Trump’s current chief strategist Steve Bannon. An aide placed that piece in Trump’s daily reading pile, said a White House official, who like other aides would not be named discussing the president’s private routine. Fueled by that report on Saturday, Trump unleashed a series of jaw-dropping tweets that accused his predecessor of spying on him. “It’s not the normal Beltway echo chamber. This is a
Women’s health services face cuts in Republican bill
Women seeking abortions and some basic health services, including prenatal care, contraception and cancer screenings, would face restrictions and struggle to pay for some of that medical care under the House Republicans’ proposed bill. The legislation, which would replace much of former President Barack Obama‘s health law, was approved by two House committees on Thursday. Republicans are hoping to move quickly to pass it, despite unified opposition from Democrats, criticism from some conservatives who don’t think it goes far enough and several health groups who fear millions of Americans would lose coverage and benefits. The bill would prohibit for a year any funding to Planned Parenthood, a major provider of women’s health services, restrict abortion access in covered plans on the health exchange and scale back Medicaid services used by many low-income women, among other changes. Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Health, Labor, Education and Pensions Committee, said the legislation is a “slap in the face” to women. She said it would shift more decisions to insurance companies. “You buy it thinking you will be covered, but there is no guarantee,” Murray said. House Republican leaders said the bill, which is backed by President Donald Trump, will prevent higher premiums some have seen under the current law and give patients more control over their care. “Lower costs, more choices not less, patients in control, universal access to care,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Thursday. The abortion restrictions and cuts to women’s health care could draw opposition from some Republican women. Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine have both said that a prohibition on Planned Parenthood funding shouldn’t be part of the bill. Last month, before the legislation was released, Murkowski told the Alaska state legislature that she doesn’t believe that taxpayer money should go toward abortions but added, “I will not vote to deny Alaskans access to the health services that Planned Parenthood provides.” Support from Collins and Murkowski will be crucial once the bill moves to the Senate, since there are 52 Republicans and the GOP will need 50 votes to pass it. A look at how the bill would affect women’s health care: ___ PLANNED PARENTHOOD Republicans have tried for years to block federal payments to the group, but weren’t able to do so with Democrat Barack Obama in the White House. Now that Republican Donald Trump is president, they are adding the one-year freeze in funding to their bill. Most GOP lawmakers have long opposed Planned Parenthood because many of its clinics provide abortions. Their antagonism intensified after anti-abortion activists released secretly recorded videos in 2015 showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing how they sometimes provide fetal tissue to researchers, which is legal if no profit is made. Federal dollars comprise nearly half of the group’s annual billion-dollar budget. Government dollars don’t pay for abortions, but the organization is reimbursed by Medicaid for other services, including birth control, cancer screenings and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. The group has said the vast majority of women seek out those non-abortion services. Ryan boasted this week that the bill is a “conservative wish list,” as it “ends funding to Planned Parenthood and sends money to community centers.” Democrats argue that many of the other clinics are already overloaded and would not be able to meet the increased demand for screenings and other services. ___ ABORTION COVERAGE Under Obama’s health law, health plans on the exchange can cover elective abortions, but they must collect a separate premium to pay for them so it’s clear that no federal funds are used. The GOP bill would go further, prohibiting the use of new federal tax credits to purchase any plan that covers abortions. That could make it more difficult for women covered under the federal exchange to find a plan that covers abortions at all, because many companies may just drop the abortion coverage if it disqualifies the entire plan from the tax credits. Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy, a Democrat, said during the Energy and Commerce Committee’s debate on the bill Thursday that he is concerned those prohibitions will extend to hospitals that do abortions, as well. ___ MEDICAID AND ‘ESSENTIAL HEALTH BENEFITS’ The bill would phase out the current law’s expanded Medicaid coverage for more low-income people that 31 states accepted, which is almost completely financed by federal funds. That could affect women’s health care services, including mammograms and prenatal care, for those who would lose that coverage. The legislation also repeals the requirement that state Medicaid plans must provide “essential health benefits” that are currently required, including pregnancy, maternity and newborn care for women. The legislation will still require that private health plans fund the essential health benefits, but those insurers will have more leeway as to how much is covered. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., complained during the committee debate about the current law’s requirements that certain services be covered. “What about men having to purchase pre-natal care?” Shimkus said in response to a question from a Democrat who asked him what mandates he was concerned about. “Is that not correct? And should they?” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
