MORE STATES MOVE TO END FEDERAL FLOW OF FUNDS TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Despite the Obama administration’s threat against terminating federal funding of Planned Parenthood, more states are cutting Medicaid funds to the nation’s largest abortion provider following videos that have exposed top medical directors of the organization engaged in the harvesting of body parts of aborted babies for potential sale to biomedical companies.

On Friday, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) directed his state Department of Human Services to terminate its Medicaid contract with Planned Parenthood, effective 30 days from a letter dated Friday, August 14, 2015, states a press release from the governor’s office.

Hutchinson said:

It is apparent that after the recent revelations on the actions of Planned Parenthood, that this organization does not represent the values of the people of our state and Arkansas is better served by terminating any and all existing contracts with them. This includes their affiliated organization, Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma.

I appreciate the legislature’s leadership on this important issue, especially that of Senator Eddie Joe Williams and Representative David Meeks.

Additionally, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) has ordered his state’s agencies to end sending federal funds to Planned Parenthood.

According to the Idaho State Journal, Herbert said in a statement Friday that he was troubled by the recent investigative videos.

Alabama, Louisiana, and New Hampshire are also in the process of terminating Medicaid contracts with Planned Parenthood.

As more states move to end their Medicaid contracts with Planned Parenthood, StemExpress, the biomedical company that has acknowledged working with the organization in obtaining the body parts of aborted babies, has also said it will cut its tieswith Planned Parenthood.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Planned Parenthood executive vice president Dawn Laguens, said in a statement:

The federal government has made it clear that states cannot cut women off from high-quality health care at Planned Parenthood like this. It’s unlawful, unpopular, and harmful to women—and that’s why politicians who have tried to do this in other states have failed. Planned Parenthood will continue to fight on behalf of the people who count on us for high-quality healthcare across Arkansas.

In an earlier statement last week on Planned Parenthood’s website, Laguens said, “Extremists who oppose Planned Parenthood’s mission and services are making outrageous and completely false claims. They are engaged in a fraud, and other claims they’ve made have been discredited and disproven.”

Asserting that “the extremists” show “a total lack of compassion and dignity for women’s most personal medical decisions,” Laguens said the Planned Parenthood medical staff, shown in the videos in a lab separating the body parts of aborted babies, were actually engaging in “standard medical practice to review tissue to ensure the health and safety of patients…”

“Planned Parenthood’s medical providers and staff are the best in the country,” she said. “We have the highest professional standards, and we take swift action if we are ever aware of an instance where those standards aren’t being met.”

However, in April of 2013, in the midst of the trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell – who was ultimately convicted of murdering infants born alive during abortion procedures – Breitbart News reported that Planned Parenthood Southeast Pennsylvania president and CEO Dayle Steinberg, speaking at a fundraiser, admitted that she knew what was transpiring at Gosnell’s “house of horrors,” but neither she nor her organization reported it to state health officials or others who could have stepped in.

Instead, Steinberg said Planned Parenthood left it up to women, traumatized by the horrors of Gosnell’s clinic, to report him.

“We would always encourage them to report it to the Department of Health,” she said.

With the release of the recent videos produced by Center for Medical Progress, national pro-life groups are calling out those who would continue to defend Planned Parenthood.

“We can now add harvesting baby organs without the consent of the mother to the list of ethical violations and criminal activities committed inside Planned Parenthood clinics,” said Lila Rose, president of Live Action, in a statement sent to Breitbart News. “If this was any other business there would be a rush by media and politicians for full disclosure, defunding and calls to shut down what appears to be a criminal enterprise.”

Following the most recent video in which StemExpress whistleblower Holly O’Donnell reveals details of how her former company, in conjunction with Planned Parenthood, did not obtain consent from women to take their babies’ body parts following abortion, Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, told Breitbart News, “This is betrayal in its worst forms. This is where the war on women is taking place.”

Hawkins, whose organization coordinated the #WomenBetrayed movement and rallies at the end of July, added:

For Planned Parenthood, an organization whose only talking point is that they are there for women in their time of need, that they care about women, that they are fighting for women’s health, this particular video is a devastating reminder that behind the façade of Planned Parenthood lies a horrible group that sells women out – and sells the body parts of their babies – for money.

Via: Breitbart

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5 THINGS AMERICA HAS LOST IN CUBA

Today the Obama administration raised the American flag above the U.S. embassy in Cuba. It is unclear what, if anything, the U.S. has won in exchange for normalizing relations with the Castro regime–one of the world’s most  oppressive tyrannies. It is clearer what we have lost.

1. We lost the struggle with Castro. The U.S. won the Cold War, but lost the battle against Fidel Castro, who sided with the Soviet Union and who has opposed the U.S. in Latin America and around the world. The ailing dictator will die knowing that he won, and America lost.

2. We lost an opportunity to free Cubans. Isolating Cuba failed because other countries retained links to the regime. But ties with the U.S. were always a bargaining chip to be offered in exchange for progress on human rights and democracy. Now that leverage is almost gone.

3. We lost an important deterrent against future enemies. From Russia to Iran, our enemies–who are often Cuba’s allies–tell each other America is too cowardly to fight for long. We confirmed that in Havana: every foe knows all they have to do is resist us for long enough.

4. We lost our self-respect. It is beyond stomach-churning to hear Secretary of State John Kerry say he feels “very much at home” in a place thousands cannot leave. It is beyond offensive to hear him talk about “GPS” in a country where people cannot even use the Internet.

5. We lost our place as leaders of the free world. Obama has helped consolidate the Cuban dictatorship–just as he is doing in Iran. We did not even invite Cuban dissidents to the ceremony, even as Kerry claimed “Cuba’s future is for Cubans to shape.” A shameful day.

Via: Breitbart

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OBAMA ADMINISTRATION THREATENS STATES ATTEMPTING TO DEFUND PLANNED PARENTHOOD

The Obama administration is threatening states attempting to defund Planned Parenthood–those trying to stop the flow of their Medicaid funds to the abortion provider–with potential violation of federal law and, ultimately, the cutting off of Medicaid funds to those states.

Following the release of investigative videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s practice of harvesting the body parts of aborted babies for potential sale to biomedical companies, Alabama, Louisiana, and New Hampshire have canceled their Medicaid contracts with Planned Parenthood, as CNSNews.com reports.

Other states are in the process of considering similar action.

In Wisconsin, for example, state Rep. André Jacque (R) is attempting to address all the layers of government funding of Planned Parenthood that are under control of his state in several pieces of legislation. While Gov. Scott Walker and the state legislature have redirected about $1 million annually from Planned Parenthood to a Women’s Health Block Grant, the abortion giant’s affiliate in Wisconsin still receives between $15 and $16 million in taxpayer money annually, mainly through Medicaid and Title X “family planning” funding.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has stepped in, however, reports The Wall Street Journal, to warn these states that they may be in violation of federal law because, by blocking Planned Parenthood’s reception of Medicaid funds, it says women could lose access to essential preventive care, such as cancer prevention screenings.

In an HHS guidance document from 2011, the Obama administration said states are not allowed to exclude providers from Medicaid solely on the basis of the types of services they offer.

According to the WSJ report, should the states continue to block Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, they can request a hearing to settle the matter; however, should the conflict continue, CMS could cut Medicaid funds to the state.

Spokesmen for both Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley said their states are not in violation of federal law since their Medicaid contracts with Planned Parenthood give either party the right to cancel it at will with a notice period: 30 days for Louisiana and 15 days for Alabama.

The HHS guidance, however, also says that states can exclude providers from Medicaid funding if their engagement in certain criminal acts is proven, a provision that many believe is the case with the videos of Planned Parenthood’s top medical personnel discussing the sale of aborted baby organs and body parts.

“This really hasn’t been tried before,” said Casey Mattox, senior legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom. “Planned Parenthood has contracts with states that can be terminated for cause. In other situations the contracts were not terminated for cause.”

The Obama administration threatened to cut off Medicaid funding several years ago from Texas, when former Gov. Rick Perry redirected federal Title X funds to family planning centers in his state that are not affiliated with Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. When Perry prohibited funding for low-income women’s health centers to go to Planned Parenthood clinics, the Obama administration argued the action was a violation of federal law and threatened to cut off Medicaid funding. Undaunted, Perry decided to fund the low-income women’s health program completely with his state’s own money.

In the wake of the release of the investigative videos by the Center for Medical Progress, White House press secretary Josh Earnest deferred to Planned Parenthood, stating the organization says it follows the highest ethical guidelines on medical research.

President Obama is a known champion of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. In April of 2013, he was the first sitting president to deliver an address to Planned Parenthood, which was founded by eugenicist and racist Margaret Sanger. He promised to stand with the organization against what he described as efforts to “turn back the clock to policies more suited to the 1950’s than the 21st Century.”

After praising the organization for its 100-year existence, Obama told Planned Parenthood, “God bless you.”

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards has enjoyed a close relationship with the White House from the start of Obama’s presidency. According to a report atCNSNews.com, an online record of visitors shows that Richards has visited the White House 39 times since Obama took office, beginning January 20, 2009–the day he was inaugurated.

Since then, Richards has met with Obama alone at least three times and First Lady Michelle Obama at least twice. Additionally, she met with the President and his wife together another four times. She also attended the President’s second inaugural on January 20, 2013.

Richards met with David Plouffe, former senior adviser to the president, four times and current senior adviser Valerie Jarrett five times. She has also met with many members of the Obama administration, including former White House Chief of Staff William Daley, Office of Management and Budget director Shaun Donovan, and current Chief of Staff Denis McDonough.

Via: Breitbart

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No means no: Keep Gitmo jihadists out of America!

No means no: Keep Gitmo jihadists out of America!

by Michelle Malkin

Creators Syndicate

Copyright 2-15

Get off that late-summer snooze button, America. The Obama administration is plotting to break a major promise made under oath — and jeopardize our nation in the name of social justice.

This week, top White House officials floated renewed plans to close down Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Pentagon and Justice Department bureaucrats have been powwowing over how to shutter the facility and import up to hundreds of detained jihad suspects into the U.S. It’s a longtime legacy promise President Obama wants to fulfill to progressives before he rides off permanently to Martha’s Vineyard and Hawaii’s lushest golf courses.

There’s one teeny-tiny problem: the promise former Attorney General Eric Holder swore to Congress after the last time his stubborn boss tried to dump the detainees on American soil. Somehow, as they busied themselves with the nitty-gritty details of transferring Islamic enemy combatants to Gitmo North, key members of Team Obama suffered a disturbing bout of national security amnesia.

Promise? What promise?

Let’s refresh their leaky memories. In 2009, the White House first floated the idea of using the Thomson Correctional Center, a high-security prison in Illinois, to house Gitmo denizens. Family members of 9/11 victims, God bless them, raised anational uproar. Debra Burlingame, sister of American Airlines Flight 77 pilot Chic Burlingame, blasted the feckless president’s assertion that no one would be put in danger by his Gitmo relocation program.

Citing convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid’s successful push (backed by liberal ACLU lawyers) to proselytize about Islam at the supermax facility here in Colorado, where I live, Burlingame cut through the bullcrap. “Mr. Obama has repeatedly suggested that the security challenge of bringing more than 100 trained and dangerous terrorists onto U.S. soil can be solved by simply installing them in an impenetrable fortress. This view is either disingenuous or naive,” she wrote.

“The militant Islamists at Guantanamo too dangerous to release believe that their resistance behind the wire is a continuation of holy war. There is every reason to believe they will continue their jihad once they have been transported to U.S. soil where certain federal judges have signaled a willingness to confer upon them even more rights.”

And don’t forget the legions of jihadi-lovin’ lawyers out there ready, willing and able to abet them. Remember Lynne Stewart, who was convicted in 2005 of helping World Trade Center bombing mastermind terrorist Omar Abdel Rahman — the murderous Blind Sheik — smuggle coded messages of Islamic violence while behind bars to outside followers in violation of an explicit pledge to abide by her client’s court-ordered isolation? The Obama administration released her from prison in January 2014, citing “compassion” for her health.

The breast cancer-surviving terrorist helper, who remains defiantly unapologetic about her service to jihad, is alive — and more than a year and half later has beenhappily kicking our country in the gut on the far-left America-bashing speech trail.

But I digress.

After citizens and public officials in Illinois, Michigan and Kansas (where another Gitmo North alternative, Fort Leavenworth, is located) staged vocal protests against Obama’s sneaky plans three years ago, Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department’s budget, moved to block the administration from using unspent Justice Department funds for the Thomson deal. With bipartisan support, Congress passed a law barring the transfer of Gitmo detainees to Thomson or any other civilian prison.

As I reported at the time, the message was clear: Taxpayers don’t want manipulative Gitmo detainees or their three-ring circuses of transnationalist sympathizers and left-wing lawyers on American soil. Period.

Insolent as ever, the White House went ahead and acquired Thomson for $165 million as part of its Gitmo gambit. The backlash forced Holder to vow to Capitol Hill in 2012: “We will not move people from Guantanamo, regardless of the state of the law, to Thomson. That is my pledge as attorney general.”

And if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. This will be the most transparent administration in history. We will do whatever it takes to prevent Iran from producing an atomic bomb. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

For those who are awake now, I ask:

Do you want Gitmo jihadists in your backyard? Or your front yard?

Do you know what, if anything, your representatives in Washington are doing to ensure America’s safety?

Do you trust the administration that brought you the bloody Fast and Furious mess, Benghazi, the healthcare.gov debacle, the deadly Veterans Administration scandal, last year’s reckless illegal alien border surge and last week’s massive EPA pollution of Colorado’s Animas River to prevent Gitmo’s bottom-of-the-barrel goons from wreaking havoc behind bars here?

Anyone? Anyone?

Via: Michelle Malkin

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Editorial: EPA’s double standard

Sure accidents happen — it’s why we call them accidents. But you can bet if some oil company had been responsible for filling a Colorado river with toxic sludge — rather than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — the Obama White House would be all over it. The Justice Department would likely have already launched an investigation and company officials marched into federal court.

But the EPA — which in its zealotry to rid our air of pollutants wants to ride herd over every coal- and oil-fired plant in the nation — took 24 hours just to notify the residents of nearby Durango of their major-league screw up.

An EPA crew assigned to clean up the Gold King mine high in the San Juan mountains of southern Colorado accidentally opened up a passage from an old tunnel in the mine, allowing millions of gallons of yellow toxic sludge to spill into a creek, and from there into the Animas River. As of Monday it had already traveled 100 miles south into New Mexico. And from there who the hell knows because it’s still flowing, heading toward Utah, including Lake Powell — an area along with Durango itself jammed with tourists this time of year.

Local officials are furious because it took the EPA 24 hours to warn anyone of the arsenic and lead-laden stew headed their way. And the earlier estimate of a 1 million gallon spill later measured at least 3 million gallons.

Yes EPA officials have apologized, but then so did those BP officials after the Gulf Coast oil spill — before they were given the boot. And there are a host of questions still not answered by EPA officials — such as why was the EPA using heavy machinery in an area known to be filled with toxins. Why was the community not notified in a timely fashion. And who will compensate businesses along the route.

Remember the latter was a key requirement in the wake of the BP oil spill.

So where do the victims of the EPA’s incompetence go to have their lives and businesses made whole in the wake of this environmental disaster?

Via: Boston Herald

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Letter to Editor PREDICTED COLORADO EPA SPILL One Week Before Catastrophe=> So EPA Could Secure Control of Area (Updated)

Last Wednesday, a small EPA-supervised work crew inspecting the Gold King mine accidentally knocked a hole in a waste pit, releasing at least three million gallons of acidic liquid laden with toxic heavy metals. (ABC)

This letter to editor, posted below, was published in The Silverton Standard and The Miner local newspaper, authored by a retired geologist, one week before EPA mine spill. The letter detailed verbatim, how EPA officials would foul up the Animas River on purpose in order to secure superfund money. If the Gold King mine was declared a superfund site it would essentially kill future development for the mining industry in the area. The Obama EPA is vehemently opposed to mining and development.

The EPA pushed for nearly 25 years, to apply its Superfund program to the Gold King mine. If a leak occurred the EPA would then receive superfund status. That is exactly what happened.

The EPA today admitted they misjudged the pressure in the gold mine before the spill – just as this editorial predicted.

The letter was included in their print edition on July 30, 2015. The spill occurred one week later.

UPDATE: Via Ace of Spades – The Silverton Standard confirmed today this letter was indeed published a week before the EPA spill.

Via: The Gateway Pundit

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REPORT: JEH JOHNSON SPARED FROM COURT OVER ILLEGAL AMNESTIES

U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen will spare Department of Homeland Security Sec. Jeh Johnson from appearing before his court later this month to answer for the Obama administration’s illegal issuance of amnesty documents.

According to the Washington Times, in a court filling Tuesday, Hanen — who had threatened to require the agency chief to appear and explain the violations earlier — excused Johnson from testifying but said the administration still must answer for their errors at a hearing on August 19.

At issue is the Obama administration’s violation of Hanen’s February injunction, which stopped President Obama’s executive amnesty programs from taking effect — namely Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) and expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Hanen’s ruling was made in the matter of 26 states’ challenge of Obama’s November 20 executive amnesty.

While the order was supposed to halt all implementation, the administration — which had already started issuing expanded DACA three-year work permits instead of the acceptable two-year permits in advance of its official start date— continued to issue three-year permits in violation of the injunction.

According to USCIS, more than 2,100 three-year permits were issued post-injunction and another 500 were issued before the injunction but, due to mail issues, were re-sent after the injunction. On July 7, Hanen pressed the Obama administration to recoup the illegal three-year permits and come in compliance with the order.

The administration embarked on an aggressive effort to replace the three-year permits with two-year ones and in the process also discovered another 50 three-year permits issued post-injunction. The administration said it had either recouped, accounted for or terminated the initial 2,600 three-year permits.

“The court does not consider mere substantial compliance, after an order has been in place for six months, to be acceptable and neither should counsel,” the Times quoted Hanen’s Tuesday filing.

Although the administration has taken action on the illegally issued permits, a source of consternation remains the more than 108,000 three-year permits that were issued in advance of expanded DACA’s official start date. According to the Times, in his filing Tuesday, Hanen noted that he “remains concerned” about the outstanding three-year permits.

Via: Breitbart

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Watchdog: Government failing to fully screen Obamacare applications

The Obama administration failed to properly review whether some Obamacare applicants were U.S. citizens or in jail, two factors that should disqualify people from getting health insurance under the law, according to a scathing report from a federal watchdog.

The finding of ineffective screening for applicants came about a month after an undercover operation discovered that fake applications were able to enroll in Obamacare and get subsidies. The report could also spark further outcry from Republicans in Congress, who have claimed for years that the administration has poorly managed the exchanges.

The review, conducted by the Health and Human Services' Office of the Inspector General, looked at 90 applications to Obamacare. They also interviewed marketplace officials and reviewed other documentation.

A slew of problems were discovered while reviewing the applications, including whether the applicant was in jail, the report said.

"Not all of the federal marketplace's internal controls were effective in ensuring that individuals were determined eligible for enrollment in QHPs and eligible for insurance affordability programs according to federal requirements," the report said.

Other inadequate controls included failing to not always properly verify Social Security numbers, citizenship, family size and annual household income, which helps determine the amount of subsidies an applicant could receive.

The report said it also identified weaknesses in the federal marketplace's procedures for resolving inconsistencies. For instance, the marketplace resolved differences in annual household income using a different method than the one it's supposed to be using, the report said.

The watchdog called on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which manage the federal exchange, to adopt several reforms. Among them are to improve procedures related to resolving inconsistencies and improve its methods for rooting out problems in an application.

The agency concurred with its recommendations and has either taken or planned to address the measures.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Obama Admin Sending Terror Suspects To Counseling

The FBI is now referring some potential terror suspects to counseling in a new strategy to defeat homegrown Islamic State supporters.

Rather than lock up everyone in the U.S. suspected of potential terrorist activity, the FBI will refer up to 10 percent of the thousands of people under investigation to counseling, reported The Wall Street Journal.

Proponents of the plan told TheWSJ it will ease the FBI’s investigative burden, and provide a possible “off ramp” from radicalization for some of the thousands of people in the U.S. interested in ISIS, especially minors. (RELATED: FBI Busts Alleged Homegrown Jihadi Ring In Minnesota)

“Nobody wants to see a 15-year-old kid go to jail if they don’t have to,” an official working on the new plan told TheWSJ, adding that the FBI will continue monitoring potential suspects referred to counseling and stand ready to arrest them.

Some inside federal law enforcement are pushing back against the plan, because of the potentially deadly consequences of misjudging potential suspects.

“I get the principle,” former FBI counterterrorism agent Peter Ahearn told TheWSJ. “But there are a lot of potential problems with this, and I think it’s a wrong move.”

A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman told TheWSJ it works closely with the FBI and believes “successful interventions will be ones conducted with the appropriate participation of community leaders, educators, mental health professionals, religious leaders, parents, peers and law enforcement, depending on the specific circumstances.”

DHS is marketing citizenship to immigrants as part of its strategy to fight homegrown terror, betting potential access to shared citizenship rights will dissuade people from linking up with ISIS. (RELATED: Boston Partners With The Feds To Market Citizenship To Illegals)

Via: Daily Caller

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[VIDEO] Climate Scientists Question Significance of Obama’s New Carbon Rule

Days after the Obama administration finalized plans to reduce carbon emissions, some climate scientists have criticized the administration for failing to detail how the regulations will lower global temperatures.

These critics suggest the administration used the plan more to inspire global climate action, rather than using it as a concrete step to make the earth cooler.

On Monday, the Obama administration finalized the Clean Power Plan, which would overhaul America’s energy system by striving to reduce carbon emissions from power plants 32 percent by 2030.

Chip Knappenberger, assistant director at the Cato Institute, argues that if the administration’s plan was implemented to perfection, the amount of climate change averted would amount to insignificant levels.

“The Clean Power Plan is only going to avert close to .02 of a degree of future warming over the course of this century,” Knappenberger told The Daily Signal. “What the EPA doesn’t like to advertise is what the mitigation will be.”

Chip Knappenberger‏@PCKnappenberger

Our analysis shows the temperature "savings" directly attributable to the #CleanPowerPlan is 0.009°C. http://www.cato.org/blog/spin-cycle-epas-clean-power-plan … @CatoCSS

• RETWEET1
• 

12:24 PM - 5 Aug 2015

In June, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, asked Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy to justify the costs of regulations in comparison to the proposed benefit in global temperature reduction.

“Do you consider one one-hundredth of a degree to be enormously beneficial?” Rep. Smith asked.

“The value of the rule is not measured in that way. It is measured in showing strong domestic action which can trigger global action,” McCarthy responded

McCarthy’s response indicated the administration’s intention to use the plan as an opportunity to position itself as a global leader in tackling climate change.

Judith Curry, an American climatologist, argued in a blog post that the Obama administration sold the Clean Power Plan as an economic and public health issue, purposely leaving out specific temperature reduction targets

Via: Daily Signal

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