Some consider the Nation’s Capital as “Fantasyland on the Potomac”. Other outsiders are “Fed Up” with the Federal City. It's better to consider D.C. as “the District of Calamity” (sic).
Despite the statistics which Family Research Council President Tony Perkins recites regarding womens' health and abortion, the United States Supreme Court ruled 5 to 3 threw out a two provisions of a Texas law which imposed health regulations which put "an undue burden" on abortion providers that have resulted in clinics shutting down. In the majority opinion for Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, Justice Steven Breyer wrote:
There was no significant health-related problem that the new law helped to cure. We agree with the District Court that the surgical-center requirement, like the admitting-privileges requirement, provides few, if any, health benefits for women, poses a substantial obstacle to women seeking abortions, and constitutes an "undue burden" on their constitutional right to do so.
Per the SCOTUS majority, requiring an abortionist to have admitting privileges to local medical facilities in case something goes awry and to maintain surgical standards in abortuaries is an undue burden. Using this logic, it seems the only reason Dr. Gosnell could be convicted is for illicitly writing drug prescriptions. Prima facia, the ironically named Whole Womens' Health decision drops the veil on so called reproductive rights being a womens' health issue and points towards abortion on demand, despite the medical circumstances. Last year in Obergefell, the Supreme Court usurped the rights of states to contract marriages as they saw fit. Now, the Supremes have essentially mooted the role of states to regulate for health concerns. Between the burgeoning bureaucratic state and a Supreme Court which is acting more like a legislative body than an impartial arbiter of law, elites may cynically question why we need states anyways. So we should stop using the politically correct euphemism of "Womens' Health" when referring to Abortion Rights. It will be interesting to learn where presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump stands on the issue. While Trump has promised to only nominate pro-life justices to the Supreme Court, Trump also repeatedly echoes accolades to Planned Parenthood for all that they supposedly do for womens' health.
During a revealing NBC Today Show Townhall, Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump commented about the North Carolina Bathroom Bill, which in most circumstances prohibits men who claim to be transsexual to use the womens' bathroom.
In the same townhall, Trump opined that he would change the longstanding Republican National platform plank about opposing abortion in all circumstances. This is yet another abortion position as several weeks ago Trump took three allegedly pro-life positions in one day then later settled on a position to maintain the status quo, as he praised the virtues of Planned Parenthood for womens' health issues.
One of the virtues of the Trump campaign is an appeal to political incorrectness as the angry silent majority is tired to caving to progressive PC whims. Trump will say outrageous things which his fanatical following will excuse as just being politically incorrect. Well, Trump's New York Values seem to be shining through and his anti-PC schtick is losing its cover.
Surely the voters in Pennsylvania and Indiana should take a measure of Trump's character and discern if it aligns with their values. However, there is little doubt that Trump supporters will follow the flip flop and vigorously promote the line of the day from their dear leader.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) gave a revealing interview to a Kentucky television station regarding his "leadership" style and priorities.
McConnell bragged how under his helm in the 114th Congress, the Republican leadership has brought order to disorder and been more productive. There are 10 times the number of roll call votes than under the last term with ex Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and the Senate is on the road to passing a budget on time, which Democrat Senate had been unable to do five of six years under the Obama Administration. Furthermore, Senator McConnell bragged about allowing for bipartisan votes, and he specifically cited the Iran Nuke Vote.
Consequently, Leader McConnell will not fight to stop Planned Parenthood funding. The so called Leader lamented that the votes simply were not there to override a veto. Too bad, so sad.
Apparently, Mr. McConnell does not appreciate the overwhelming anger of the Republican base about a do-nothing Congress which stands for nothing.
Senator McConnell conveniently forgot about Senator Rand Paul's effort to attach a Planned Parenthood defunding amendment to the highway bill, which was virtually a must pass piece of legislation. The Republican Majority Leader followed his predecessor's practice of filling the amendment tree so that no amendments (other than what the Majority Leader preferred) could be attached.
Instead, Senator McConnell promised a "stand alone" defund Planned Parenthood vote, which inevitably fell short of attaining cloture, meaning that the bill would never be finally voted upon, but phony conservatives could still say that they voted against Planned Parenthood to their gullible constituents while on the hustings or in town hall meetings.
For budget reconciliation votes, there is a special mechanism (the Byrd rule) which does not require a cloture vote to cut off debate. So theoretically, a budget with a Planned Parenthood defunding rider could pass and land on President Obama's desk, where it is likely that America's most pro-abortion Chief Executive would veto the budget. Which would mean that Mr. Obama would be responsible for closing down the government to support Planned Parenthood selling baby body parts.
But the Republican establishment is scared of its own shadow much less the prospect of having a government shutdown blamed on them. So seemingly, the GOP Congresssional "leadership" (particularly in the Senate) will acquiesce to anything to avoid that outcome.
Senator McConnell's profile in cowardice in prematurely waving the white flag on the budget shows that he cares more about a hollow set of accomplishments instead of standing for life, law, or principles. Aside from more roll call votes, how can Senate leadership in the 114th Congress be distinguished from the Democrats. President Obama gets everything he wants. If there is legislation which rubs him the wrong way, the Republican establishment in the Senate caves when Mr. Obama "threatens" to take out his veto pen.
At this point, Mr. Obama is a lame duck who should have waning influence even within his own party. Admittedly, Planned Parenthood funding might be a major fight, but it would be worth it to a principled party. This is not a new law outlawing abortion, it is enforcing existing law on fetal pain partial birth abortion and outlawed abortion practices, which the Center for Medical Progress have show that Planned Parenthood is flagrantly flouting the rule of law.
During the WYMT-TV Issues and Answers interview, Mr. McConnell seemed proud to endorse upcoming Iran Nuke Vote. There are strong prospects for passage but it may not garner the 2/3rds vote for a veto proof majority. Using McConnell's same logic, Republicans should fold up tent and give up because it will not be signed into law.
Of course, the Corker/Cardin procedure ignores proper procedure that a binding international agreement (treaty) must have 2/3rds yea votes (instead of disapproval by 2/3rds). But even if the Iran Nuke vote fails to block enactment, a strong show of disapproval would give the next President indication of the unpopularity of the Executive Agreement. Similarly, passing a budget with a Planned Parenthood defunding amendment might not stand in the short term, but it would lay down a marker for the future. But that involves standing for principle and not feathering one's nest for the next time to try and hoodwink Republican primary voters.
As elites in the District of Calamity (sic) seem increasingly out of touch, it is worthy to point out some guide posts. Senator Ted Cruz's July floor speech exposing the perfidy of Mitch McConnell regarding the Ex-Imp bank showed the duplicity of establishment Republicans to the base. The current front-runners in the Republican Presidential race are all outsiders (Trump, Cardin, Fiorina and Cruz) running on a Washington Is Broken meme. Avoiding hard votes, like Defunding Planned Parenthood may make big time contributors happy but it bodes poorly with the well-informed base who vote in primaries. And in the end, when it comes to choosing between a progressive and a progressive lite, why not choose the real thing, because you know what you are getting and it won't be a lie.
During a tough interview with Megyn Kelly on Fox News Channel, Patricia Ireland speaking on behalf of the National Organization for Women (NOW) sought to justify NOW's labeling of the Little Sisters of the Poor as part of the "Dirty 100" in light of the recent Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014) Supreme Court ruling.
Ireland deflected the denigration of the Catholic nuns as being like the "Dirty Dozen" with other corporations, presumably for fundraising efforts. But Kelly does not let her off than easily, suggesting that the nuns be considered "Groups with whom we disagree". The former NOW President kept insisting that the Little Sisters could "opt out" of the Obamacare contraception mandate. Except the alleged work around forces the Sisters to sign the Form 700 document permitting others to provide the abortifacients which are anathematic to their faith. Ireland offered patronizing lip service to the nuns' living their faith and helping the indigent infirmed. But what she does not realize is that if the Little Sisters of the Poor are eventually forced to pay for such unwanted services ordered by former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius then they will move out rather than contravene their consciences. Ireland insisted that I.U.D.s, which is one of the abortifacients in question, does not kill eggs in the uterus. Well, that's not quite true. Generally, inter-uterine devices act as spermicide to prevent fertilization but copper I.U.D.s are touted as an emergency contraceptive for five days after intercourse. Most sperm dies within two days after ejaculation (even in the uterus), thus the emergency contraceptive quality of such I.U.Ds intimates that it prevents the implantation of the blastocyst thereby killing a fertilized egg. Ireland incorrectly asserted that the Supreme Court had ruled on the "opt-out" provision. Hobby Lobby covered closely held corporations with conscience objections but Obamacare opt-outs for non-profits has not been decided yet (although SCOTUS has offered a unanimous injunction pending appeal on January 24th, 2014). Ireland's fatal rhetorical faux pas was her bon mot that Supreme Court decisions do not affect the reality. The hostess of the Kelly Files jumped in and asked if Roe v. Wade affected the reality. T o borrow an oft uttered Ireland phrase from the interview "Bless her heart."
Last spring, husband and wife veteran filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Anne McElhinney were publicizing their feature documentary Fracknation as the murder trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell was occurring in Philadelphia. McAleer was amazed at the lack of coverage of a prolific serial killer that murdered two women in botched late term abortions in unsanitary conditions, used a brutal snipping technique to kill a thousand children beyond the legal limit for abortion and also dealt prescription drugs.
Yet the national mainstream media ignored the Gosnell case, dismissing it like a local murder case while lavishing attention on the concurrent Jodi Arias murder trial. McAleer did man on the street interviews in California to learn about what the public knew about sensational murder trials.
As Katherine Graham, the former publisher of the Washington Post, proclaimed: "What we cover and what we don't matter a lot...The power is to set the agenda." Fox News commentator Greg Gutfeld recently speculated about the reasons why most of the mainstream media (including Fox) did not cover the Gosnell trial closely:
"The reason why they don't do this one is not because the evil is so grotesque. It's that it's too close to a moral choice they've made. That's what it's about. It's not that like, ah it's so hard to do something on this man who butchered babies. It's because it's too close to the pro-choice mindset."
However, McAleer and McElhinney were so haunted by the Gosnell trial that they backed away from other crowd-source funded projects so as to make a movie about Gosnell. Yet Anne & Phelim Media encountered more velvet gloved censorship by Kickstarter, which claims to not curate projects but would not allow them to describe their dramatized movie idea as being about a mass murderer who killed a thousand children as it allegedly violated community standards which Kickstart "encourages and (selectively) enforces". McAleer believes that it is within Kickstarter's right to not facilitate funding but that it should be forthright that it is due to the project matter not a transparent lie about community standards which it does not enforce for sundry other offensive projects.
So they moved their crowd-source funding efforts to Indiegogo, where they have raised $1.2 million of a fixed target $2.1 million. If they do not make their designated funding mark by May 12th, the money reverts back to the prospective investors.
There is already an excellent documentary film 3801 Lancaster, which interviews victims of Gosnell's House of Horrors. So McAleer and McElhinney want to make dramatized version of the Gosnell story which would run on the Lifetime Movie Network rather than a feature documentary to reach a wider audience.
It is easy for seaboard elitists to dismiss a film about Gosnell as just being by religious zealots with pro-life propaganda, which is a touch charge to apply to McAleer and McElhinney. In addition, this dismissive instinct ignores how Dr. Gosnell was a racist as he gave his white patients much better and cleaner abortion services than his clients of color.
A film about Gosnell must also include a political angle. Former Governor Tom Ridge (R-PA) was elected as chief executive of the Keystone State as a moderate Republican. The governor's office made it clear that the Commonwealth should do nothing to impede abortion services, so Gosnell's clinic was not properly inspected for 17 years, despite gruesome reports and several deaths.
Gosnell's clinic was raided because Gosnell was writing prescriptions like a pell mell pill mill for Oxycotin and the ilk. That raid permitted police to stumble upon an unsanitary abortion butchery, where Gosnell kept severed limbs as trophies.
Hearing the filmmakers promote their project, it is clear that they yearn to tell a compelling true story about a prolific American serial killer and pull back the curtain on details which a progressive public would rather ignore.
If one wishes to help actuate the Gosnell movie project, one can contribute to the efforts at www.gosnellmovie.com. Those who contribute $25 will get a DVD of the film. But the filmmakers also implore people to contribute anything to show that people care.
Alas, it is the 41st anniversary of Roe v. Wade. So the poignant political cartoon and the statistics of casualties of the judicially mandated imposition of abortion on demand are slightly out of date, but no less poignant.
Yet politicians can demagogue about a "War on Women", yet forget about the children who are casualties, as well as sanction barbaric and illegal practices (ala Kermit Gosnell) which endanger womens' health so as nothing might endanger the so called "Right to Choose."
The marketing of this pill is targeting youthful minorities as an alternative to birth control pills, which might require a pesty and embarrassing visit to a physician while skirting some state's parental notification requirements.
When a dozen New York City high schools announced that they would be distributing the so called "morning after pill", New York Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan objected to distributing powerful drugs with serious potential side effects to girls as young as 14 without parental consent as being "tragic and misguided". Cardinal Dolan's modest proposal that:
The public schools would be better advised to promote
what truly works rather than continuing to follow a failed experiment
that will only lead to further problems for society and for young
people.
But of course inculcating an approach of abstinence before marriage is advocating morality and that can not be allowed in secular schools. But freely distributing morning after pills like Plan B while limiting aspirin, ear-piercing, tattoos or tanning beds without parental consent is fine because of potential health risks.
Abortion advocates have long advocated that such a delicate decision should be made between a woman and her doctor. Now Plan B eliminates the doctor which may ameliorate those horrific statistics. And since it is an Over-the-Counter purchase, it eliminates the cost strain on the free birth control and abortofacients prescribed in Obamacare.
Abortion opponents like Dr. Alveda King have observed that the most dangerous place for African Americans is the womb.
The Plan B One-Step and the marketing towards minority youth seems to fulfill Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger's plan to weed out undesirable elements from the population. The irony is that the eugenics occurs at the hands of targeted population. What progress!
Then again, consider President Obama's blessing of Planned Parenthood during his re-election campaign in 2012.
It was prudent to prepare for strange civic expressions considering mob mentality and trashy theatrics which abortion activists have employed during the course of this Texas abortion debate. Spectators' demonstrations drown out lawmaker debate at the end of the first special session to obstruct passage. Abortion activitist chanted Hail Satan over pro-life prayers. During the second special session, State Troopers reportedly took urine and feces away from pro-choice protesters.
But a week after the messy instance of legislation, MSNBC hostess Melissa Harris-Perry engaged in the Theater of the Absurd by wearing tampon earrings. As she donned the custom made fashion protest accessories, Harris Perry ejaculated:
I just have to show these. My producer Lorena made for me last week some tampon earrings because of course you’re remember that the Texas state legislature said that you couldn’t bring tampons in when they were going these women to in fact stand up for their own reproductive rights. You weren’t allowed initially to bring tampons. So, just in case that ever happens again ladies, you can just bring them on your earrings.
As a news junkie, I do not object to a commentator having a pronounced opinion. On a cable channel like MSNBC which boasts the marketing mantra "Lean Forward" and is colloquially called "Mess-DNC", it is expected that views are going to be slanted to the left. But Ms. Harris-Perry is also supposed to be a Professor of Political Science from Tulane University, with earlier stints at Princeton and the University of Chicago (in African American Studies). With this that sort of pedagogic pedigree, Melissa Harris Perry stoops to conquer by wearing tampon earrings a week after the issue has passed.
Tiger Beat Terrorist Parody
Is MSNBC so desperate for ratings that it needs to use cheap publicity stunts like Rolling Stone by putting the surviving Boston Bomber as on the cover like the equivalent of being Tigerbeat Terrorist to win the spotlight? Or does Harris-Perry's lack of decency embody the libertine left's total lack of tact? Or does it show that NBC's cable news channel has no standards--after all, they give Al Sharpton a daily news show each evening. Resist we much (sic).
As the California Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) cases were argued before the United States Supreme Court, there was a concerted social media campaign to show support for Same Sex Marriages by displaying an equals sign on a red background. This Graphic "You want to talk about Equality" challenges that meme with footprints challenging progressive secular sanctimoniousness by reminding them about their negative solution on the Right to Life. Meme chose, n'est pas? Actually no it isn't as the right to life would seem to trump altering contract rights and imposing it on all states.
This week marked the 40th Anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade which open the floodgates across America for abortion on demand. Associate Justice Harry Blackman mooted some state anti-abortion laws in his 1973 majority opinion under the guise of an unwritten “right to privacy” that was contained in penumbras and emanations of the bill of rights as applied to states via the Fourteenth Amendment. This vague and confusing “logic” was the legal modus operandi for the judicial branch to legislate from the bench by imposing progressive moral sensibilities as "choices".
Pro-Life protesters have demonstrated in our Nation’s Capitol every year around that January 22nd anniversary to protest this perceived injustice to the unborn. This is the first year that the March for Life has been held without Nellie Gray, who died last August at the age of 88. Gray was an accomplished attorney for the Federal Government who was so appalled by the Roe v. Wade decision that she walked away from her career (and took a small pension) to dedicate her life to standing for life by organizing the Marches for Life.
Although scheduling conflicts precluded my participation in this year's March for Life, organizers estimated at least 500,000 people participated despite the bitter cold and the afternoon onset of snow which makes District of Calamity denizens deranged.
View of crowd from the 40th March for Life, Washington, DC January 25, 2013
Yet you would never know it by the elite liberal media reports (a.k.a. the Lamestream Media). The sea of humanity marching for the sanctity of human life, from conception to natural death, is minimized while the dozen of counter-protesters insisting that abortion is not murder are given equal time. And the media is quick to cite an outlier poll which "proves" their point that people do not think that abortion is murder.
It is interesting to know that Roe v. Wade was based on a lie. It is miraculous how the Holy Spirit moved Norma McCorvey to be an advocate for truth and life.
