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For Immediate Release
February, 10 2011, 03:49pm EDT
Contact:
212-261-4433 or,media.office@ppfa.org,.
Statement by Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, on Rep. Mike Pence's Press Conference to Defund Planned Parenthood
"In the last two days, House leadership and Representative Mike Pence have made their agenda for this country abundantly clear: target women's health care programs and women's health providers under the guise of deficit reduction.
WASHINGTON
"In the last two days, House leadership and Representative Mike Pence have made their agenda for this country abundantly clear: target women's health care programs and women's health providers under the guise of deficit reduction.
"The House Republican leadership's latest proposal to completely eliminate the national family planning program, called Title X, is outrageous. This is an extreme and dangerous proposal that would abolish a program that provides lifesaving, preventive care to millions of women each year and saves taxpayers money This program has helped millions of women since 1970, when President Richard M. Nixon signed it into law.
"Simply put, eliminating the national family planning program will result in millions of women across the country losing access to basic primary and preventive health care, such as lifesaving cancer screenings, contraception, HIV testing and counseling, STI testing and treatment, and annual exams. For six in 10 women who receive medical care from doctors and nurses at family planning health centers like those run by Planned Parenthood, these centers are their main source of health care.
"If these proposals pass, more women will find out later than they should that they have cancer and many more women will be at risk for unintended pregnancies.
"In addition, Representative Pence's proposal to exclude Planned Parenthood from all critical public health funding streams will hurt Americans -- taking away health care that millions of women receive today. Representative Pence's proposal is an unprecedented, ideological attack on a specific health care provider that will result in more women losing access to the very basic health care they need.
"It is unconscionable that Representative Mike Pence and other members of Congress would link arms in a press conference today with Live Action, a discredited extremist organization whose leader has called for abortions to take place in public.
"There is a coordinated and highly political effort to undermine Planned Parenthood and the health care we provide. This effort includes fraudulent activities driven by organizations with a clear mission to eliminate family planning, birth control, and legal abortion. Simply put, their goal is to prevent women from accessing reproductive health care services. That is unacceptable and immoral.
"Representative Mike Pence's bill to defund Planned Parenthood and his support to eliminate the national family planning program (Title X) is bad policy and bad politics. That's why we urge Congress to reject this dangerous proposal."
BACKGROUND:
Other members of Congress scheduled for attendance: Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH), Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO), Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC), Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD).
Data on Representative's states receiving Title X funding:
Indiana Title X Funding details:
28 health centers
77,364 clients served
14,440 patients Title X
50.11% of Title X female contraceptive patients served by Planned Parenthood
67,719 STI Tests
16,435 Pap Tests
20,908 Breast Exams
Maryland Title X Funding details:
Receives Title X Funding
10 health centers
36,369 clients served
15,621 patients Title X
32.76% of Title X female contraceptive patients served by Planned Parenthood
40,491 STI Tests
7,878 Pap Tests
7,528 Breast Exams
Missouri Title X Funding details:
Receives Title X Funding
17 health centers
52,382 clients served
18,631 patients Title X
42.35% of Title X female contraceptive patients served by Planned Parenthood
74,944 STI Tests
13,177 Pap Tests
13,034 Breast Exams
New York Title X Funding details:
Receives Title X Funding
68 health centers
223,148 clients served
153,290 patients Title X
58.11% of Title X female contraceptive patients served by Planned Parenthood
321,913 STI Tests
71,804 Pap Tests
70,555 Breast Exams
North Carolina Title X Funding details:
9 health centers
30,066 clients served
602 patients Title X
8.02% of Title X female contraceptive patients served by Planned Parenthood
20,215 STI Tests
5,777 Pap Tests
5,456 Breast Exams
Ohio Title X Funding details:
35 health centers
97,441 clients served
63,529 patients Title X
56.58% of Title X female contraceptive patients served by Planned Parenthood
110,910 STI Tests
24,193 Pap Tests
23,231 Breast Exams
Live Action's History of Deceptive Editing
Several news organizations have analyzed Live Action tapes, and found evidence of selective editing to create a false impression. Live Action has a history of using deceptive tactics and doctoring video.
2011: Roanoke Times Editorial: Scam video. An editorial in the Roanoke Times rebutted Live Action's edited tape, saying: "Live Action's scurrilous attempts to portray Virginia Planned Parenthood clinics, including the one in Roanoke, as willing facilitators of the sexual exploitation of girls must be denounced for what they are: lies.... What Live Action's surreptitious taping does not -- indeed, could not possibly -- show is the clinic staff's real response to their strange, disturbing visitor." (Roanoke Times editorial, 2/8/11) https://www.roanoke.com/editorials/wb/276293
2010: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Rebuts Live Action's edited tape in Wisconsin. An editorial in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel exposed Live Action's edited tape, saying: "Live Action says there were conflicting statements in the video about fetal viability, when it's a baby and heart tones vs. heartbeats. But a viewing of the fullest tape available reveals that the clinician and doctor go to lengths to tell the woman about embryonic and fetal development. She leaves before she can be examined." (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 8/2/2010) https://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/99791324.html
2009: Los Angeles Times Rebuts Live Action's edited tape in Indianapolis. The Los Angeles Times analyzed a videotape Live Action made inside an Indianapolis Planned Parenthood health center and said, "The conversation in the uncut version is more nuanced than the edited five-minute version, and includes a staffer stating emphatically, 'We have to follow the laws,' and another urging Rose to tell her mother about the pregnancy." (Los Angeles Times; 4/26/09) https://articles.latimes.com/print/2009/apr/26/nation/na-abortion26
CNN: Live Action videos reminiscent of edited O'Keefe videos. CNN reports, "the Live Action videos are reminiscent of those by right-wing videographer James O'Keefe.... O'Keefe's videos were found in at least two investigations to be so heavily edited as to be an unreliable record of what happened, showing no evidence of any wrongdoing by ACORN staff members.... The Live Action videos also appear to be heavily edited." [https://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/02/08/abortion.video.retraining/]
Media Matters: Live Action Doctors and Manipulates Video. According to an analysis by Media Matters, "Live Action also appears to have doctored the audio of its Richmond'sting,' moving audio from one portion of their video to a different portion." (Media Matters: "Why Is Live Action Doctoring Its Planned Parenthood Audio?"; 2/4/11)
https://mediamatters.org/blog/201102040026
Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) is many things to many people. We are a trusted health care provider, an informed educator, a passionate advocate, and a global partner helping similar organizations around the world. Planned Parenthood delivers vital health care services, sex education, and sexual health information to millions of women, men, and young people.
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Series of Reports Ignored by Media Show Jeffrey Epstein's Extensive Work With Israeli Intelligence
"It looked like Mossad was working for Epstein instead of Epstein working for Mossad,” said Drop Site News reporter Murtaza Hussain.
Nov 12, 2025
As the US House of Representatives appears poised to vote for a resolution demanding the release of files relating to the late sex criminal and financier Jeffrey Epstein, a new series of investigations is digging into an area of the disgraced financier's life that has largely evaded scrutiny: his extensive ties with Israeli intelligence.
Epstein's relationship with the Israeli government has long been the subject of speculation and conspiracy theorizing. But the extent of the connections has long been difficult to prove. That is, until October 2024, when the Palestinian group Handala released a tranche of more than 100,000 hacked emails from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who led the country from 1999 to 2001.
The emails span the years 2013-16, beginning just before Barak concluded his nearly six-year tenure as Israel's minister of defense. Barak is known to have been one of Epstein's closest associates, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that he visited the financier's estates in Florida and New York more than 30 times between 2013 and 2017, years after Epstein had been convicted for soliciting a minor for prostitution.
Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's most prominent victims, who died earlier this year, alleged in her posthumous memoir that a figure, described only as "the Prime Minister," but widely believed to be Barak, violently raped her on Epstein's private Caribbean island when she was 18. In past court filings, Giuffre accused Barak of sexually assaulting her. Barak has categorically denied those allegations and said he was unaware of Epstein's activities with minors during the time of their friendship.
Emails between Barak and Epstein have served as the basis for the ongoing investigative series published since late September by the independent outlet Drop Site News, which used them to unearth Epstein's extensive role in brokering intelligence deals between Israel and other nations.
The emails reveal that between 2013 and 2016, the pair had "intimate, oftentimes daily correspondence," during which they discussed "political and business strategy as Epstein coordinated meetings for Barak with other members of his elite circles."
The investigation comes as President Donald Trump's extensive ties to Epstein face renewed scrutiny in Congress. On Wednesday, just a day after Drop Site published the fourth part of its series, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a new trove of documents from Epstein's private estate.
Among them were emails sent in 2011 from Epstein to his partner and co-conspirator Ghislane Maxwell, in which he said the then private-citizen Trump “spent hours at my house” with one of his sex trafficking victims, referring to Trump as a “dog that hasn’t barked.”
Murtaza Hussain, one of the Drop Site reporters who has dug into Epstein's Israel connections, told Democracy Now! on Wednesday that the focus on Trump, while important, has diverted attention from other key tendrils of Epstein's influence.
"There's been a lot of justifiable focus on Epstein's very grave crimes and facilitation of the crimes of others related to sex trafficking and sex abuse," Hussain said. "But one critical aspect of the story that has not been covered is Epstein's own relations to foreign governments, the US government, and particularly foreign intelligence agencies."
The first report shows that Epstein was instrumental in helping Barak develop a formal security agreement between Israel and Mongolia, recruiting powerful friends like Larry Summers, who served as an economist to former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, to serve on a Presidential Advisory Board for the Central Asian nation's economy.
Epstein helped to facilitate an agreement for Mongolia to purchase Israeli military equipment and surveillance technology from companies with which the men had financial ties.
Another report shows how Epstein helped Israel to establish a covert backchannel with the Russian government at the height of the Syrian Civil War, during which they attempted to persuade the Kremlin to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a major national security priority for Israel, which had become substantially involved in the conflict.
This process was coordinated with Israeli intelligence and resulted in Barak securing a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In one message, Barak explicitly thanked Epstein for "setting the whole thing together."
Epstein also worked alongside Barak to sell Israeli surveillance tech, which had previously been used extensively in occupied Palestine, to the West African nation of Côte d’Ivoire.
In 2014, the pair architected a deal by which the nation's government, led by President Alassane Ouattara, purchased technology used to listen in on phone calls and radio transmissions and monitor points of interest like cybercafes.
In the decade since, the report says, "Ouattara has tightened his grip on power, banning public demonstrations and arresting peaceful protestors," while "his Israeli-backed police state has squashed civic organizations and silenced critics."
On Tuesday, just before the House Oversight Committee dropped its latest batch of documents, the series' latest report revealed that an Israeli spy, Yoni Koren, stayed at Epstein's New York apartment for weeks at a time on three separate occasions between 2013 and 2015. Koren served as an intermediary between the American and Israeli governments, helping Barak organize meetings with top intelligence officials, including former CIA Director Leon Panetta.
Drop Site's reporting has fueled speculation of the longstanding theory that Epstein may have worked as an agent of Mossad, Israel's central intelligence agency. Hussain said that the evidence points to the idea that Epstein was not a formal Mossad agent, but was working as an asset to advance its most hawkish foreign policy goals.
He marveled at the fact that throughout each of these stories, “it’s not Epstein chasing Barak—it’s Barak chasing Epstein," and that at times, "it looked like Mossad was working for Epstein instead of Epstein working for Mossad.”
In a foreword to their latest report, Hussain and co-author Ryan Grim expressed bewilderment at the lack of media attention paid to the publicly available files revealing Epstein's role as a semi-official node in Israel's intelligence apparatus.
While Epstein's relationship with Trump has routinely been front-page news for many outlets, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal have not published a story focused on Epstein's role in Israeli intelligence.
"We’re left wondering why the rest of the media, which has demonstrated no lack of excitement when it comes to the saga of Jeffrey Epstein, has all of a sudden lost its reporting capacity, in the face of reams of publicly available newsworthy documents," the reporters asked. "A question for editors reading this newsletter: What are you doing?"
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As the US House of Representatives prepared for a vote to reopen the federal government, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday called out members of her own Democratic Party in the Senate, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who capitulated to Republicans in the shutdown fight, for which they received "nothing" in return.
Shortly before the government shut down over Republicans' refusal to address a looming healthcare crisis, Axios reported that the New York congresswoman was preparing to run for president or Senate in 2028. In the lead-up to Wednesday's vote, she was asked at least twice on camera about how Schumer, also a New Yorker, handled the shutdown.
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New — Asked AOC about Chuck Schumer’s handling of shutdown. (He voted NO on bill)
“We are talking about a coordinated effort of eight senators with the knowledge of Leader Schumer, voting to break with the entire Democratic Party in exchange for nothing,” she told me pic.twitter.com/fzDkMGMfzy
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 12, 2025
Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Dick Durbin of Illinois, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, along with Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, who caucuses with Democrats, joined Republicans for both the procedural and final votes.
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While no senators in the caucus have demanded that Schumer step aside yet, The Hill on Wednesday compiled comments from the growing list of House Democrats who have called for new leadership: Reps. Glenn Ivey (Md.), Ro Khanna (Calif.), Mike Levin (Calif.), Seth Moulton (Mass.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Mark Pocan (Wis.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Shri Thanedar (Mich.), and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.).
In a video circulated by C-SPAN on Wednesday, a reporter directly asked Ocasio-Cortez whether Schumer should stay in his leadership role. The progressive congresswoman's response was similar to her remarks to CNN.
Q: "Should Schumer stay as minority leader?"
.@RepAOC @AOC: "This problem is bigger than one person. It actually is bigger than the minority leader in the Senate...A leader is a reflection of the party and Senate Democrats have selected their leadership to represent them." pic.twitter.com/5cPi5GQzov
— CSPAN (@cspan) November 12, 2025
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Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Wednesday that he had received a request from US President Donald Trump to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently on trial in Israel for alleged bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.
“I hereby call on you to fully pardon Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been a formidable and decisive War Time Prime Minister, and is now leading Israel into a time of peace," Trump wrote in a letter to Herzog.
While Trump said that he "absolutely respect[s] the independence of the Israeli Justice System,” he denounced the case against Netanyahu as “political, unjustified prosecution.”
"It is time to let Bibi unite Israel by pardoning him, and ending that lawfare once and for all," Trump added, using Netanyahu's nickname.
U.S. President Donald Trump, also a criminal, has formally requested Israeli President Isaac Herzog to grant a pardon to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
[image or embed]
— Josep Goded (New Main Account) (@josepgoded2.bsky.social) November 12, 2025 at 2:54 AM
Herzog's office responded to Trump's letter with the following statement:
The president holds great respect for President Trump and repeatedly expresses his appreciation for Trump’s unwavering support of Israel and his tremendous contribution to the return of the hostages, the reshaping of the Middle East and Gaza, and the safeguarding of Israel’s security. Without detracting from the above, as the president has made clear on multiple occasions, anyone seeking a pardon must submit a formal request in accordance with the established procedures.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid noted in a social media post that "Israeli law stipulates that the first condition for receiving a pardon is an admission of guilt and an expression of remorse for those actions."
Amir Fuchs, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem-based think tank Israel Democracy Institute, told the Washington Post that “pardon is a word for forgiveness, a pardon without some kind of admission of guilt is very unusual and even illegal."
Fuchs added that any pardon based on Trump's request could be viewed as giving a "green light" to corruption and "undermining the rule of law."
Many social media users responded to Trump's letter with the same four words—"birds of a feather"—noting that the Republican president was convicted of 34 felony charges related to the falsification of business records regarding hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 presidential election.
In addition to his domestic trial, Netanyahu is also a fugitive from the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the Gaza genocide.
Herzog also faces criminal complaints filed in Switzerland alleging incitement to genocide over remarks including a suggestion that Palestinian civilians in Gaza were legitimate targets for Israeli strikes because "it is an entire nation out there that is responsible" for the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack.
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