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WASHINGTON President Joe Biden on Friday condemned the extreme Supreme Court majority that ended a constitutional right to abortion and delivered an impassioned plea for Americans upset by the decision to vote, vote, vote vote in November. Under mounting pressure from fellow Democrats to be more forceful in response to the ruling, he signed an executive order to try to protect access to the procedure.

The actions Biden outlined are intended to head off some potential penalties that women seeking abortion may face after the ruling, but his order cannot restore access to abortion in the more than a dozen states where strict limits or total bans have gone into effect. About a dozen more states are set to impose additional restrictions.

Biden acknowledged the limitations facing his office, saying it would require an act of Congress to restore nationwide access to the way it was before the June 24 decision.

The fastest way to restore Roe is to pass a national law, Biden said. The challenge is go out and vote. For Gods sake there is an election in November!

Bidens action formalized instructions to the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services to push back on efforts to limit the ability of women to access federally approved abortion medication or to travel across state lines to access clinical abortion services. He was joined by Vice President Kamala Harris, HHS secretary Xavier Becerra and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in the Roosevelt Room as he signed the order.

His executive order also directs agencies to work to educate medical providers and insurers about how and when they are required to share privileged patient information with authorities an effort to protect women who seek or obtain abortion services. He is also asking the Federal Trade Commission to take steps to protect the privacy of those seeking information about reproductive care online and establish a task force to coordinate federal efforts to safeguard access to abortion.

Biden is also directing his staff to line up volunteer lawyers to provide women and providers with pro bono legal assistance to help them navigate new state restrictions.

The order comes as Biden has faced criticism from some in his own party for not acting with more urgency to protect womens access to abortion. The courts decision in the case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.

Since the decision, Biden has stressed that his ability to protect abortion rights by executive action is limited without congressional action, and stressed that Democrats do not have the votes in the current Congress to do so.

We need two additional pro-choice senators and a pro-choice house to codify Roe, he said. Your vote can make that a reality.

Biden for the first time last week announced his support for changing Senate rules to allow a measure to restore nationwide access to abortion to pass by simple majority, rather than the usual 60-vote threshold required to end a filibuster. However, at least two Democratic lawmakers have made clear they wont support changing Senate rules.

He predicted that women would turn out in record numbers in frustration over the courts decision, and said he expected millions and millions of men will be taking up the fight beside them.

On Friday, he repeated his sharp criticism of the Supreme Courts reasoning in striking down what had been a half-century constitutional right to abortion.

Lets be clear about something from the very start, this was not a decision driven by the Constitution, Biden said. He accused the courts majority of playing fast and loose with the facts.

He spoke emotionally of a 10-year-old Ohio girl reported to have been forced to travel out of state to terminate a pregnancy after being raped, noting that some states have instituted abortion bans that dont have exceptions for cases of rape or incest.

A 10-year- old should be forced to give birth to a rapists child! an incredulous Biden nearly shouted. I cant think of anything more extreme.

Biden added that in the November congressional lections, The choice we face as a nation is between the mainstream or the extreme.

His directions to the Justice Department and HHS push the agencies to fight in court to protect women, but the order conveys no guarantees that the judicial system will take their side against potential prosecution by states that have moved to outlaw abortion.

NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju called Bidens order an important first step in restoring the rights taken from millions of Americans by the Supreme Court.

But Lawrence Gostin, who runs the ONeill Institute for National and Global Health at Georgetown Law, described Bidens plans as underwhelming.

Theres nothing that I saw that would affect the lives of ordinary poor women living in red states, he said.

Gostin encouraged Biden to take a more forceful approach toward ensuring access to medication abortion across the country and said Medicaid should consider covering transportation to other states for the purposes of getting abortions.

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told the AP that the agency was looking at how Medicaid could cover travel for abortions, along with a range of other proposals, but acknowledged that Medicaids coverage of abortion is extremely limited.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser condemned Bidens order, saying, President Biden has once again caved to the extreme abortion lobby, determined to put the full weight of the federal government behind promoting abortion.

Bidens move was the latest scramble to protect the data privacy of those contemplating or seeking abortion, as regulators and lawmakers reckon with the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling.

Privacy experts say women could be vulnerable if their personal data is used to surveil pregnancies and shared with police or sold to vigilantes. Online searches, location data, text messages and emails, and even apps that track periods could be used to prosecute people who seek an abortion or medical care for a miscarriage as well as those who assist them, experts say.

Privacy advocates are watching for possible new moves by law enforcement agencies in affected states serving subpoenas, for example, on tech companies such as Google, Apple, Bing, Facebooks Messenger and WhatsApp, services like Uber and Lyft, and internet service providers including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Comcast. Local prosecutors may go before sympathetic judges to obtain search warrants for users data.

Last month four Democratic lawmakers asked the FTC to investigate Apple and Google for allegedly deceiving millions of mobile phone users by enabling the collection and sale of their personal data to third parties.

___

AP writers Aamer Madhani, Marcy Gordon and Hillary Powell contributed to this report.

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Impassioned Biden signs order on abortion access - Woodland Daily Democrat

On Thursday, Kunce released a very effective ad that centers reproductive rights and womens rightswhile also pointing out the hypocrisy of thearchaic toxic masculinity promoted as a virtue by conservatives. This is the kind of messaging the Democratic Party needs to get on board for.

He opens with: Im Lucas Kunce and I have a message for Americas men: Step the hell up! Throughout the advertisement, a hard rock guitar riff plays, reminiscent of penis-pill advertisements one sees and hears during sporting event broadcasts. Its sort of superb. From there he talks about how reproductive rights and childrens rights are being taken away and conservative men are flexing their muscles by standing on the sidelines, acting powerless.

He also connects the fact that he was a Marine in Afghanistan and Iraq, being told how he was fighting for the human rights of women in other countries, only to come home to a far more tyrannous Republican-led movement at home.

The video even gives a nice visual shoutout to weak leaders like Sen. Joe Manchin, who has pretended he has no power as a sitting U.S. senator. Kunce also pounds home the middle-American masculinity fallacy implicit in the pro-life movement.Real men fight for choice, the screen readsas Kunce gives his very simple message to voters: Thats why Im running for Senate. In Washington I will kill the filibuster and codify Roe v.Wade.

Ive heard enough!

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I've got a message for America's men about abortion. pic.twitter.com/bJItUvSx2x

Privacy as a foundational value in a post-Roe landscape on Daily Kos' The Brief podcast

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The fall of Roe affects everyone, and this Missouri Democrat wants men to 'Step the hell up!' - Daily Kos

A new abortion poll from the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) out Wednesday illuminates how media and abortion activists are able to skew public opinion by keeping people in the dark about the practice. Once Americans understand the grisly details and what Roe v. Wade really entailed, their opinions change dramatically.

For instance, while the pro-abortion media routinely tout Roe as majority-supported, more than half of the poll respondents opposed Roe v. Wade once they learned it allowed for late-term abortions.

Fifty-three percent said they support, versus 31 percent who opposed, Roe v. Wade when it was presented to them as the keystone to recognizing abortion as a so-called constitutional right, which is the lefts framing of the issue. But when participants learned Roe allowed for late-term abortions, when unborn babies can feel pain, those numbers reversed and then some: 56 percent said they opposed Roe v. Wade, and only 28 percent supported it.

The trend of participants switching positions once they knew more facts continued throughout the poll. When asked if they supported or opposed late-term abortions, seventy-four percent of Republicans opposed compared to only 36 percent of Democrats. Almost half the Democrats surveyed said they support late-term abortions.

However, once participants were asked if a fetus counts as a human life when it has a heartbeat at six weeks, begins to move its eyes at 12 weeks, or can feel pain at 14 weeks, the Democrat position on late-term abortion shifted. Fifty-nine percent of respondents, including 49 percent of Democrats, now said they support abortion bans if there is an indication of life.

Sixty-eight percent of participants thought a fetus is a human life once it has a heartbeat at six weeks. And once they were reminded a fetus has a unique DNA blueprint as soon as sperm meets egg, a whopping 66 percent said a fetus is a human life at conception. After answering questions about the humanity of unborn children, 55 percent of respondents said abortions should be prohibited between 0 and 6 weeks gestation.

Its clear to see how public opinion changes where knowledge about human life and development increases, but left-wing activists and media have a vested interest in hiding the cruel realities of abortion from Americans. After all, the abortion lobby, led by the likes of Planned Parenthood, capitalizes on this ignorance. They have fought ultrasound requirements for years to keep women from seeing the undeniable baby boys or girls growing in their wombs and are now promoting the chemical abortion pill as a safe, easy way to simply undo a pregnancy, despite the grave danger it poses to women, another fact the poll highlighted.

These polls are really important as they show what people think once theyve been educated, AAPLOG CEO-elect Dr. Christina Francis, a board-certified OB/GYN, said in a press meeting on Wednesday.

When it comes to abortion, Americans ignorance is the lefts bliss.

Beth Whitehead is an intern at The Federalist and a journalism major at Patrick Henry College where she fondly excuses the excess amount of coffee she drinks as an occupational hazard.

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Look How Opinion Shifts On Abortion When Polls Reject Leftist Framing - The Federalist

For several months the Russian invasion has virtually monopolized international headlines and the attention of world leaders. It seems that during this period, China has disappeared from the front pages of major newspapers. However, the recent visit of Xi Jinping to Hong Kong has revived interest in China, especially in Xi and his future plans.

Two years ago, the burgeoning pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong was brought to a halt by strong arm tactics of mainland China. In this recent visit, Xi Jinping again virtually laid the law for Hong Kong with his statement that this territory must be ruled by patriots. Officially, Xi was in Hong Kong to celebrate the 25thanniversary of the colonys return to China.

However, Xi used the visit to warn against any future challenges to Beijings authoritarian grip on this former British colony. The new head of Hong Kongs government, John Lee, played an instrumental role in crashing the 2019 pro-democracy protests.

In spite of accusations that Xi Jinping was going against the original agreement of a one-nation, two-systems government for Hong Kong, it is clear that he is determined to continue the crackdown on any dissent. It should be remembered that when the British left the colony on July 1, 1997, there was a commitment that for 50 years, Hong Kong would be granted a certain degree of autonomy.

These recent developments have placed Hong Kongs role as an international capital for business and finance in jeopardy. The system of capitalism is now considered in peril by some observers. During his visit, Xi said, All Hong Kongers should be able to respect and safeguard the fundamental socialist system of the nation. At the same instance, John Lee said that the system had overcome foreign interference that had threatened the national security of the country.

This has led geopolitical observers to discuss Chinas move to reintroduce communism in China. There has been a barrage of new regulations that has stifled the decision-making of large China-based businesses like Alibaba and Tencent. It is noticeable that these large Chinese corporations have stopped expanding in many new areas in the world. It has been said that China hopes to replace these large capitalist companies with a new generation of businesses that is more aligned with the goals of the Communist Party.

In terms of the communist ideology, the path to communism is not direct but must be taken one level at a time. A decade ago, Zhao Ziyang, who was then Communist Party chief, had said that China must be freed from the restrictions of orthodox socialist principles. This allowed China to introduce capitalism and to repudiate the Maoist ideology. The dramatic economic growth in China is the result of this return to market economy.Today, under Xi Jinping, Zhaos beliefs have been repudiated. Xi has vowed to put China back on the path of socialism and eventually, communism.

Early this year, Xi Jinping said that the Partys goal was forging ahead to a higher level of socialism. He has often urged party members to have faith in the lofty ideal of communism.

I can remember that sometime in the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping, the countrys paramount leader at that time, said: The basic completion of socialist modernization would take at least a hundred years.Communism was then considered a very long-term goal. But this has changed under Xi Jinping, who believes that socialist modernization, another term for communism, would be completed by 2035.

There is much speculation on why Xi has insisted on a zero-COVID policy, on cracking down on pro-democracy sentiment in Hong Kong and on bringing large business firms under the firm control of the Communist Party.

Personally, I attribute this to the fact that towards the end of this year, there will be a major Communist Party Congress. At the same time, this will also be the end of the unprecedented ten-year term of Xi as head of China. It is clear by now that Xi is aiming for another five-year term which he hopes to ratify at this Congress. It seems to me that all these moves are geared towards laying down the groundwork for an extension of Xis term on the grounds that he will be a necessity and ultimately will be beneficial for the Communist Party and for China.

The biggest obstacle to Xis coronation as the president for life is the need to reduce the tremendous gap between the rich and the poor in China. I believe that this is the reason that Xi has been talking a lot about the need for common prosperity. Officially, the Communist Partys goal is to put common prosperity in place by 2050. I believe that Xi Jinping is aiming to be the next Mao Zedong without the need for mass violence.

The coming Party Congress will be very critical for Xi Jinpings ambition to be ruler for life.

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Young Writers Hangout on July 23 with returning author-facilitator Kim Derla, 2-3 pm. Write Things six-day summer workshop Writefest is on its last three days this week. Contact [emailprotected].0945.2273216

Email: [emailprotected]

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The road to communism in China - Philstar.com

Count Istvn Plffy, who has died aged 89, stood as a candidate in the Hungarian parliamentary election in 2018 aged 85. Though he was not elected, he was immensely proud of standing in a constituency that his grandfather had represented from 1872 until he died in 1933. He stood for Momentum, a party of young people which rejected the Right-wing policies of the prime minister, Viktor Orbn.

Plffy was born into one of the oldest aristocratic families in Europe. When writing his family history, he chose the somewhat tongue-in-cheek title The First Thousand Years. His great passion was history, and he liked to say that he received his education at the hands of the vagaries of history. The Second World War broke out on his first day at school; the Nazis marched into the territory of their Hungarian allies in 1944 and, soon after, he was to become a victim of Soviet communism.

Though born into the purple of Hungarian aristocratic life on both sides of his family, Plffy only enjoyed the benefits which that station offered for a few years of his boyhood. By the time he was 15, he had been declared by the new Communist regime to be a class enemy and an enemy of the people. He was expelled from his private school and compelled to work as an unskilled labourer. He was later sent as a prisoner to a forced labour camp before escaping to England in 1956.

Count Istvn Plffy ab Erdd was born in Budapest on 22 May 1933, the son of Count Ferenc Plffy ab Erdd and Countess Jlia Apponyi de Nagy Appony. His fathers family claimed descent from a Swabian knight who had settled in Hungary around the year 970.

His mothers family was ennobled in the 13th century. His mother, who was related to Queen Geraldine of Albania, married Patrick Leigh Fermors great friend, Elemr von Klobusiczky, immortalised as Istvan in his book Between the Woods and the Water.

Both families produced legions of soldiers and diplomats in the service of Hungary. Therefore it delighted Pista Plffy when he was press-ganged into the new communist-led army and given the lowest possible rank in the hope of humiliating him. This move did not have the desired effect. You see, he joked with friends, I am the first Plffy in history to be in the army and not be a general.

In the long line of ancestors, in which he took pride, it was his maternal grandfather, Count Albert Apponyi, of whom he was most proud. It fell to him to lead the Hungarian delegation at the Peace Conference at Versailles in 1919; on his shoulders rested the terrible burden of returning to Hungary with the dictated terms of the Treaty of Trianon. This instrument reduced the ancient kingdom of Hungary to a mere rump state.

The outbreak of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 allowed him to escape Hungary. Tall, elegant and with a decidedly aristocratic roll to his pronunciation of the letter r, Plffy cut an unusual dash at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he read Moral Sciences.

He felt comfortable in England. His great-uncle, Count Albert Mensdorff, had been Austrian ambassador. Istvn already spoke English fluently, and there was a ready-made group of Hungarian migrs willing to welcome him.

He was grateful to Cambridge for absorbing this exotic Hungarian aristocratic exile. At Trinity Hall, he had an unusual encounter with CS Lewis when, on an after-dinner stroll back to his rooms, the tongue-tied and slightly nervous Plffy broke the ice by asking Lewis if he thought the English obsession with the weather had anything to do with the sinking of the Spanish Armada.

Lewis remained silent, but the next day sent Plffy a note saying he had found a reference in a medieval play showing the English obsession with the weather predating the Armadas sinking by several centuries.

On leaving Cambridge, Plffy was at a slight loss as to how he might use a degree in Moral Sciences. A friend advised him to try advertising, because that profession is not too fussy about degrees and probably considers Moral Sciences to be all about being a good person. A few years spent in the advertising industry provided him with an income but little intellectual satisfaction.

He was a regular patron of Londons famous Hungarian restaurant, the Gay Hussar in Soho. He once arrived for lunch to find a delegation from the Hungarian Communist Party being entertained by some diplomats. The Hungarian head waiter, sensing the potential sensitivity of the situation, asked him if he wished to be seated as far away as possible from the group. Plffy replied: Not an inch, put me right up against them.

He found his intellectual metier in the emerging computer industry and applied his intellect to designing information systems for libraries; as a private consultant, his clients were as diverse as the British Museum Library and the Shah of Iran. Before the fall of the Shah, he spent several years travelling to Iran to develop the computer system for a proposed National Library. He also advised the Iranians on how they might apply developing computer technology to modernise their blood transfusion service.

With the collapse of Communism in 1989, Istvn Plffy returned to his native Budapest, where he bought a flat on the Rzsadomb, a hill in Buda overlooking the city. There, in his book-lined rooms, he was regularly sought out by historians such as Norman Stone or by those who were simply curious to know about a man who had survived the vicissitudes of communism without bitterness.

A son and a daughter survive him. His wife predeceased him.

Count Istvn Plffy ab Erdd, born May 22 1933, died July 2 2022

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Count Istvn Plffy, Hungarian aristocrat who fled the country in 1956 and worked in advertising and information systems in Britain obituary - The...