Leading Democratic Party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton embraced Planned Parenthood on Thursday, defending the nation’s largest abortion provider during a campaign speech in Greenville, South Carolina, and later in a statement from that speech posted to Twitter. Planned Parenthood has been under fire recently after videos were released showing its officials glibly discussing trafficking in body parts of aborted babies.
Friday, July 24, 2015
Hillary Clinton
Massachusetts Becomes 9th State to Investigate Planned Parenthood Selling Aborted Baby Body Parts
Massachusetts is ow the 9th state to launch an investigation into the Planned Parenthood abortion business after two shocking videos showed its top doctors involved in making arrangements to sell the body parts of aborted babies.
A second shocking video has been released showing a top Planned Parenthood official discussing and arranging the sale of body parts of aborted babies. The first video shows Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Senior Director of Medical Services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, describing how Planned Parenthood sells the body parts of aborted unborn children and admitting she uses partial-birth abortions to supply intact body parts.
In the second video, Mary Gatter, the Medical director at Planned Parenthood Pasadena and San Gabriel Valley in California, discusses selling aborted baby body parts with undercover investigators posing as officials with a biotech company that acts as a middleman to sell aborted baby body parts to universities and other places that conduct such research. Gatter is a senior official within Planned Parenthood and is President of the Medical Directors’ Council, the central committee of all Planned Parenthood affiliate medical directors.
A total of 8 other states states have already launched an investigation including Kansas, Missouri,Arizona, Indiana, Ohio, Georgia, Texas and Louisiana and members of Congress have launched an investigation as well.
Now, the pro-abortion Attorney general of Massachusetts says she will undertake an investigation to ensure there is no illegal activity happening. However, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey says her office already talked with Planned Parenthood, which attempted to convince her that nothing is amiss. With her position favoring legal abortion, there’s significant concern that the investigation will not be exhaustive and will amount to a defense of Planned Parenthood.
“My office spoke with Planned Parenthood and they assured us this type of alleged activity does not happen here,” Healey told Boston Herald Radio’s “Morning Meeting.” “That said, we are going to review it, we are going to ask questions, as always is the case. We will always make sure to look at any evidence of illegal activity here in Massachusetts.”Healey emphasized such tissue donation is legal, although selling fetal tissue is not.“I want to emphasize and not conflate the story on the national level with what might be happening here,” she said.Healey said she has not had time to review either of the two videos that have been released, but does plan to. She also said she disagrees with the conservative Republican politicians who have called for Planned Parenthood to be defunded — including presidential hopefuls Rand Paul and Rick Santorum yesterday on Herald Radio.“I don’t think it should be defunded. We need to support efforts to provide the best quality healthcare,” Healey said. “Planned Parenthood plays a critical role in terms of delivering health care to women and men in this state. I strongly support their mission.”
Healey doesn’t give residents of the Bay State much confidence that her office will conduct a legitimate investigation when she starts her investigation with a defense of ensuring the Planned Parenthood abortion business receives taxpayer funding.
Obama Administration Restricts Investigative Powers Of Inspectors General
The Obama administration formally announced that inspectors general will have to get permission from their agency heads to gain access to grand jury, wiretap and fair credit information — an action that severely limits the watchdogs’ oversight capabilities, independence and power to uncover fraud.
An opinion, issued by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, says the Inspector General Act of 1978 — which was written by Congress to create the government watchdogs in order to help maintain integrity within their agencies — does not have the authority to override nondisclosure provisions in other laws, most notably in regard to grand jury, wiretap or fair credit information.
“In reaching these conclusions, our Office’s role has not been to decide what access [inspectors general] should receive as a matter of policy. Rather, we have endeavored to determine as a matter of law, using established tools of statutory construction, how best to reconcile the strong privacy protections … with the interest in access reflected in … theIG Act,” states the legal counsel’s opinion, which was dated Monday and released Thursday.
“I strongly disagree with the OLC opinion,” Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general, said in a statement. “Congress meant what it said when it authorized Inspectors General to independently access ‘all’ documents necessary to conduct effective oversight. Without such access, our Office’s ability to conduct its work will be significantly impaired, and it will be more difficult for us to detect and deter waste, fraud, and abuse, and to protect taxpayer dollars.”
Mr. Horowitz has had to seek former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s permission, and now Loretta E. Lynch’s, to gain access to such material. The approval process in obtaining the materials delayed review of Operation Fast and Furious — the failed Mexican drug cartel sting that lost track of more than 1,000 government-issued guns, one of which later was used to kill a U.S. Border Patrol agent — and has delayed other reports the inspector general is set to publish.
At no point has the Justice Department denied any of Mr. Horowitz’s requests, but some in Congress have argued that requiring the inspector general to ask the attorney general for materials represents a direct conflict of interest and impairs the inspector general’s independence.
A Surge Against Proposition 13
In June of 1978 California governor Jerry Brown opposed Proposition 13, but voters passed the measure in a landslide. California’s ruling class has never ceased to attack it, and these attacks are certain to escalate with new ammunition from Nathan Gardels of the Berggruen Institute.
“The Proposition 13 property tax revolt of 1978 still defines the fiscal framework of California,” Mr. Gardelsrecently wrote in theSacramento Bee. “That revolt was sustained largely by an older, white middle class reasonably, at the time, seeking to protect their assets from a bloating state.”
Mr. Gardels is right about the “bloating state,” but he neglects to explain that government growth and inflation were taxing people out of their homes. In these conditions it was reasonable that people would seek to protect their assets, but for Mr. Gardels, these were mainly older people.
In reality, young first-time homebuyers championed Proposition 13. After making the biggest purchase of their lives, in a time of rampant inflation and high unemployment, young people did not aspire to be saddled with onerous and ever-rising property taxes. That’s why nearly two-thirds of California voters, Asians, African-Americans and Mexican-Americans among them, decided to limit those taxes.
Californians might recall that, under Proposition 13, property tax rates could not exceed 1 percent of the property’s market value and could not grow by more than 2 percent per year unless the property was sold. And unlike the California Coastal Act of 1976, which created the Coastal Commission, Proposition 13 created no new state agencies and included no mandate for new state spending.
Proposition 13 applied to all Californians, regardless of ethnicity, but for Gardels it was mainly about older “white” people. These old folks may have had a legitimate complaint, but in his view they represent the past.
“The political constituency of California’s future,” Mr. Gardels explained, “is largely Latino, Asian and youthful.” And this constituency of the future “is seeking to build their assets through upward mobility.” And for Mr. Gardels, that changes the equation.
“For aspirational constituencies striving to reach the middle class,” he wrote, “the most important thing is an opportunity web and trampoline to boost their chances.” Trouble is, “even though California has one of the most progressive tax structures in the nation, inequality is rising and dashing hopes.”
So if progressive taxes, which means higher and more punitive taxes, are not serving as a trampoline and opportunity web, what might do the job?
Mr. Gardels wants a new philosophy of governance that focuses on the “overall progressive outcome.” In this vision, the very high state income tax should be reduced “while extending a sales tax on services.” Politicians will be happy to oblige.
Proposition 13, meanwhile, prevents the state from inflicting punitive property taxes on all Californians. It is one of the few measures actually to limit the power of government.
If ruling-class types find it objectionable, there is something they can do: Craft a measure that nixes Proposition 13, pegs property taxes at 10 percent of the property’s value, and allows increases of 15 percent per year. Put that on the 2016 ballot and let California voters decide.
If facing the people proves too daunting, maybe the Berggruen Institute—a group “dedicated to the design and implementation of new ideas of good governance” —can offer a 12-step plan to trim California’s bloated government. As Mr. Gardels makes clear, the government’s appetite for more of the people’s earnings remains ravenous as ever.
Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow with Independent Institute in Oakland. He and his family bought their first house in California in 1977. Originally published on Fox and Hounds Daily.
LIBERAL STUDY UNINTENTIONALLY REVEALS NATIONWIDE ILLEGAL ALIEN CRIME SPREE
A report issued by the liberal Migration Policy Institute (MPI) further shreds Chuck Todd’s assertion on NBC’s “Meet The Press” last Sunday that he and his staff, “couldn’t find a single study that links violent crime and immigration.”
Tucked inside a report about President Obama’s new amnesty is the estimation from this liberal think tank there are 820,000 illegal aliens in the United States with criminal convictions, including 690,000 illegal aliens currently residing on U.S. soil who have been convicted of a felony or “serious” misdemeanor.
The 820,000 figure is not an estimation of total crimes committed by illegal immigrants—which would be a much higher number—but only those illegal aliens successfully identified, arrested, tried, and convicted.
Combined with other statistical data points, however, the 820,000 figure gives us a way to examine the scope of total illegal alien crime. Even conservative assumptions produce harrowing conclusions, and demonstrate that there are likely millions of American victims of illegal alien predators.
First, the appendix in MPI’s report explains that it reached the 820,000 figure by “assuming unauthorized immigrants and lawful noncitizen immigrants commit crimes at the same rates.” While millions of Americans have been victimized by aliens with visas—the U.S. issues the majority of its visas to either unstable, poor, or violent countries.
MPI’s assumption is still overly-generous. The mere fact that illegal aliens are more likely to be young and male than aliens in general makes the assumption flawed. The true population of criminally-convicted illegals is almost certainly quite a bit higher.
But this still provides only a fractional snapshot of the total population of criminal illegal aliens. MPI’s estimation covers only those individuals caught, arrested, tried and convicted. But millions of crimes are committed that never result in a conviction.
For instance, less than half (48.9 percent) of violent felony arrests in New York City result in a conviction and sentence, according to a report from the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. The national “clearance rate” for homicides is 64.1 percent—meaning less than 2 in 3 murder cases results in the suspect even being arrested, let alone convicted. In Washington D.C., according to police data analyzed by The Washington Post, only 1 in 3 homicides results in a conviction.
What this means is that for the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who have been found, caught, tried, and convicted, there are hundreds of thousands more illegal alien offenders on the loose who have never been successfully identified or convicted. This latter point is also important because it is the policy of the administration and Sanctuary Cities to free criminal aliens if convictions aren’t obtained—giving them ample opportunity to continued their crime spree. Of course, tens of thousands with convictions are freed as well.
The task of getting a conviction has only grown more difficult over time. AsThe Washington Times reports, “The national homicide “clearance rate” — that is, local police identifying and arresting killers — has slipped to 64.1 percent from more than 90 percent just 50 years ago.” The Washington Times explains that this marked decline is attributable in part to “higher closure standards and more crimes being committed by gangs and drug dealers who may have no local footprint and/or encourage ‘no snitch’ mentality.”
The liberal-leaning National Public Radio explains that this is especially true for crimes committed in communities likely impacted by immigration: “Since at least the 1980s, police have complained about a growing ‘no snitch’ culture, especially in minority communities. They say the reluctance of potential witnesses makes it hard to identify suspects.”
Low crime-to-conviction rates in general are likely greatly exaggerated for certain crimes committed by immigrants and especially illegal immigrants. Illegal lawbreakers not only have an extra incentive to flee to avoid trial in order to avoid deportation if convicted, but also can more easily do so. It stands to reason that a citizen charged with breaking into a car is less likely to flee the country than an illegal alien charged with the same. Many illegals also flee immediately, long before anyone comes looking for them.
As acclaimed Manhattan Institute scholar Heather Mac Donald has documented, “In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens.”
This suggests that the enormous number of convictions for illegal aliens only points to a vastly larger number of alien criminals who evaded conviction any one of ways including fleeing the jurisdiction, fleeing the country or being shielded by large transnational gangs like MS-13.
Most Wanted Lists across the country point to the number of extremely violent and serious crimes where the immigrant perpetrator is at large. Moreover, the number of crimes per criminal is greater than 1. For instance, GAO found an average of 7 arrests per incarcerated alien. All told, this means there are certainly millions of Americans who are the victims of criminal acts by illegal aliens. Each and every one of these crimes could have been prevented had our laws been enforced.
House, Senate heading for showdown on highway funding
Senate and House Republicans are heading to a showdown over transportation spending.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wants to pass a six-year highway deal before Thursday to give the House time to take it up before the August recess, according to a Senate GOP leadership source.
But opposition to the Senate bill is growing on the other side of the Capitol.
House Republican leaders want the Senate to instead pass a five-month highway patch and won’t say whether they would give the Senate transportation bill a vote in their chamber.
McConnell is betting that House GOP leaders will relent once they have the bill in their laps, with the Highway Trust Fund due to expire on Aug. 1.
The House adjourns for the August recess at the end of next week.
“The House will have to make a decision. The temporary bill is just another patch,” said Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (Texas).
McConnell tried a similar gambit in May when he attempted to jam the House with a clean extension of the National Security Agency’s surveillance authority. It blew up when he failed to muster the 60 votes needed to pass it out of the Senate.
The Senate leader was still mulling his legislative options on Thursday, but senators and aides said the most likely scenario is that he will offer the six-year highway bill as a substitute amendment on the floor Friday to get the ball rolling and then fill the amendment tree to limit the debate.
Senators and aides then expect McConnell to file cloture on an amendment to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, setting up a vote on Sunday or Monday on the controversial agency.
A Senate aide said McConnell could file cloture — the motion to end debate and proceed to a vote — on the highway bill and the underlying legislative vehicle on the same day he does so for the Ex-Im Bank amendment. That maneuver would allow the Senate to wrap up work on the highway measure and get it to the House by Wednesday.
Don Stewart, McConnell’s spokesman, said Thursday afternoon that no decisions had been made on how to proceed and cautioned there are a variety of paths under consideration.
But other Senate aides said other routes require unanimous consent, an unlikely proposition given strong conservative opposition to the Ex-Im Bank.
Lawmakers and aides said a vote on the bank may be postponed until Monday, but that could push a final vote on the highway package until Thursday unless all 100 senators agree to yield back procedural time.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he would wait to see what legislation McConnell can push through the upper chamber.
[VIDEO] Boehner to Hillary: 'Immediately' Turn Over Email Server
Speaker of the House John Boehner is calling on Hillary Clinton to turn over her private email server "immediately."
“Two inspector generals appointed by President Obama have now called on the Justice Department to investigate Secretary Clinton’s mishandling of classified email. If Secretary Clinton truly has nothing to hide, she can prove it by immediately turning over her server to the proper authorities and allowing them to examine the complete record," Boehner says in a statement to the press.
“What these reports demonstrate is the inherent risk of conducting our nation’s diplomacy and foreign policy on your home email and personal server. Secretary Clinton has repeatedly claimed that the work-related emails on her private home server did not include classified information, but we know that is not true. She has claimed she is well-aware of what matters are classified and what are not, and yet she set up a personal email server to discuss matters of national security despite guidance to the contrary from both her State Department and the White House. Her poor judgement has undermined our national security and it is time for her to finally do the right thing.”
In the statement to reporters, the speaker of the House's office reminds reporters of Clinton's March 10, 2015 statement, “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material. So I’m certainly well-aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material."
Planned Parenthood’s "ERRONEOUS" corporate sponsor list
If they sincerely cherish their names and reputations, the principals of Coca-Cola, Ford and Xerox should launch a joint lawsuit against Planned Parenthood.
Until the scandalous video showed their doctors talking about the sale of aborted baby parts as ‘taking care of business’, the names of the three multi-nationals, among others, were being openly advertised as corporate sponsors on the Planned Parenthood website. The purveyors of selling aborted baby parts have linked their names to infamy, and in fact disgraced all corporations boldly named on the Planned Parenthood website.
Members of the public at large have taken to the Internet calling for a boycott on the products of these companies thought to be in league with the baby killers.
“Representatives from Coca-Cola, Ford Motor Co. and Xerox say they’ve asked Planned Parenthood to remove their names as corporate donors to the embattled organization. (Daily Signal, July 23, 2015)
“The move follows a Daily Signal report revealing the names of 41 companies that Planned Parenthood listed as donors. That list, which was featured on Planned Parenthood’s website, has since been removed.”
Removing the list means the corporate donors who continue to support Planned Parenthood are now anonymous and will be able to carry on their support under the cover of covert secrecy.
“This latest development comes in the wake of two undercover videos that showed Planned Parenthood executives talking about the sale of fetal body parts. Planned Parenthood is facing both federal and state investigations—and the possibility of losing taxpayer funding. (Daily Signal)
If Coca-Cola, Ford and Xerox did not agree to be corporate donors of the baby killing organization, that means Planned Parenthood lied, and likely used that lie as a means to lure other businesses to their corporate sponsor list.
IRS back under fire on Tea Party targeting
A series of new revelations Wednesday and Thursday put the Internal Revenue Service back under fire for its alleged efforts to curtail the power of conservative nonprofits.
First, the Government Accountability Office uncovered evidence that holes in the tax agency's procedure for selecting nonprofit groups to be audited could allow bias to seep into the process.
Then, during a heated House Ways and Means Committee hearing Thursday morning, lawmakers exposed the lack of safeguards that could prevent IRS officials from going after groups with which they disagreed.
Meanwhile, the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch released documents Wednesday that suggested the IRS targeted the donors of certain tax-exempt organizations.
The controversies focused renewed scrutiny on the embattled agency, which has been fending off allegations of discrimination against conservatives since 2013.
"The burden of proof is on the IRS to show they are not targeting organizations," said Rep. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., during the hearing Thursday.
She noted "up to 34 percent of cases selected for audit were dismissed without documentation," suggesting IRS officials could have given certain groups "preferential treatment" by declining to audit them.
"How do we know that those decisions weren't biased?" Noem asked the IRS commissioner, John Koskinen.
Rep. Peter Roskam, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee's oversight subcommittee, highlighted a finding in the GAO report that indicated one in four audits that were touched off by a complaint had no record of the original allegation on file.
SEMPER FI Act Introduced to Arm Military Recruiters
President Barack Obama and his Pentagon bureaucrats may not want our military recruiters to be able to defend themselves, but many outraged people in Congress certainly do.
I just got this press release from the office of Senator Steve Daines, announcing the Securing Military Personnel Response Firearm Initiative (SEMPER FI) Act to arm recruiters before we suffer another mass attack on military facilities while Obama pretends that we don’t have a problem.
Daines, Hunter Introduce Bicameral Legislation to Allow Military to Carry at Recruitment CentersWASHINGTON, D.C. — Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) and Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA) today introduced legislation to allow military officers the ability to carry weapons at military recruitment centers.The Securing Military Personnel Response Firearm Initiative (SEMPER FI) Act, which was introduced today in the Senate and the House, allows the military to authorize recruiters to be armed when they’re at recruitment centers or allows them to improve structural security at recruitment centers. The bill also limits the carrying of a sidearm to officers and non-commissioned officers.In February 1992, the Department of Defense (DoD) issued Directive 5210.56, which stated that DoD policy was to “limit and control the carrying of firearms by DoD military and civilian personnel.”The DoD reissued the Directive in April 2011.“The fastest way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. It’s time to allow our men and women in uniform – including our military recruiters – to have all the resources they need to protect and defend themselves,”Daines stated. “It’s unfortunate that it took a tragedy like what happened in Tennessee to wake us up to the fact that there needs to be a policy change, and that our military recruiters should be able to defend themselves while doing their job making sure that we maintain the most effective fighting force in the history of mankind. ”“What happened in Tennessee is an absolute tragedy,” said Hunter, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan with the U.S. Marine Corps. “All the talk about security upgrades to recruiting offices is fine, but the simple act of arming qualified personnel in these spaces presents the most effective line of defense. It’s a reality of the post 9-11 world that terrorists and radicals will look to strike soft targets and we shouldn’t pretend that incidents similar to what happened in Tennessee couldn’t happen elsewhere. Military recruiters embody the spirit, patriotism and values that not only make our military great, but our nation too. They are targets, as are others in uniform, and they should be afforded the type of protection that is adequate for the threat they face. We need to make it tough for anyone who might think of busting into a recruiting office with the intent to harm. Any person or group of people who make that mistake should know that there are a few Marines, soldiers or other service members on the other side of that door who’ve heard the sound of gunfire, who’ve had all the right firearms experience and training, and who aren’t defenseless.”The SEMPER FI Act has garnered support from both the National Rifle Association and the Gun Owners of America.
There are several competing bills that are going to be hitting the floors in both the House and Senate, and the saddest thing is that it shouldn’t be needed.
U.S. military commanders have the authority to arm the troops if they see the need to do so, but they still refuse, for what appears to amount to butt-covering to protect their own careers in case a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine negligently or criminally uses the use of the weapon they authorized.
It seems absurd that we have to give political cover (or directives) to military brass, but unfortunately, selfish careerism isn’t any more absent from the military than it is anywhere else.
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