[OPINION] California’s Pillage People Lead The Nation In Tax Collector Harassment

California is making a strong case that its pillage people – tax collectors, that is – are the worst in the nation. Should that be doubted, consider the Golden State’s enduring campaign against inventor Gilbert Hyatt, who in 1990 was awarded the patent for the first single-chip microprocessor.

The computer industry welcomed this invention, earning Hyatt a lot of money. He soon moved to Nevada, which has no state income tax. California’s Franchise Tax Board (FTB) claimed Hyatt lied about his residency, and that he owed $7.4 million in taxes for a six-month period from 1991 to 1992. Over more than 20 years, that sum has ballooned to between $55 million and $60 million.

In Nevada, California’s FTB goons ransacked Hyatt’s trash without warrant, told his business partners and doctors he was under investigation, and shared Hyatt’s personal information with the media. Hyatt sued the agency for harassment and violation of privacy. California tried to get the suit dismissed, but in 2003 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Hyatt had a right to go to trial. So he did.

In 2008, a Las Vegas jury awarded him $388 million, including $250 million in punitive damages. California’s tax hacks duly appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court, calling the award “flagrantly excessive” and claiming they did nothing wrong.

In 2014, Nevada’s Supreme Court tossed much of the award, but Hyatt retained the $1.2 million for fraud. He had been awarded $85 million for emotional distress, but the court has ordered a new trial on the amount Hyatt deserves.

Despite the reduction in damages, the verdict was a clear beat-down of California’s Franchise Tax Board. The agency’s response was to continue its legal pursuit of Hyatt, with encouragement from U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr., a George H. W. Bush nominee who questions Hyatt’s motives and would place the burden of proof on the inventor.

Hyatt claims the FTB is contending that he was both a resident of California who owed them taxes, and a nonresident who owed them taxes. Now 76, Hyatt believes California officials are waiting for him to die, believing it would be easier to deal with his heirs.

Former California state senator and assemblyman Bill Leonard has said the FTB action against Hyatt “does amount to a persecution at this point.” Constitutional expert Erwin Chemerinsky of the UC Irvine law school, who is representing Hyatt free of charge, told reporters that “It’s a real injustice” what has happened to the inventor, who has been “denied due process.”

As far as can be discerned, California’s loss in Nevada courts did not prompt the Franchise Tax Board to fire or discipline any managers or employees. Nor has a state senator held public hearings on the Hyatt matter, as happened for the new span of the Bay Bridge after news reports raised concerns about safety problems. Nor has Governor Jerry Brown, an evangelist for the state’s high taxes, made an issue of the tax agency’s zealous persecution of Hyatt.

Taxpayers might conclude that FTB bosses believe they are above the law and unaccountable. The tax collectors have not exactly been transparent about how much money they are spending to pursue Hyatt.

“At some point, you have to wonder whether the costs are justified based on the amounts that taxpayers have laid out,” David Kline of the California Taxpayers Association told reporters. “The FTB has hired outside lawyers in addition to using their own staff resources. It’s a significant cost and it continues to grow.”

Meanwhile, as the Sacramento Bee reported, the attorneys general of 19 other states filed a brief siding with California, claiming the Nevada verdict had a “chilling effect” on tax investigators. Clearly, all states have their pillage people, but those states will be hard pressed to match California for sheer government greed.

Bill Leonard explains that in California, tax collectors “just pick on anyone successful.” Inventors of useful products such as the single-chip microprocessor will find better conditions in other states.

Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow with the Independent Institute in Oakland, California, and author of Hollywood Party: Stalinist Adventures in the American Movie Industry.

Via: Daily Caller

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Obamacare Customers Mostly Unsatisfied With Plans

Only 30 percent of Obamacare customers are satisfied with their plans, with cost an important reason why.

The finding in a recent survey is significantly lower than people who get their insurance through their employer (42 percent), Medicaid (48 percent) or Medicare (58 percent). It also doesn't help the administration which has fought back criticism of expected premium hikes set to go into effect next year.

Obamacare customers are less confident than other insured customers they can get affordable healthcare, the research firm Deloitte reported in the survey released Monday. Only 24 percent of enrollees are confident they can get affordable care when they need it, which is slightly lower than the 27 percent who feel that way about their employer's plans.

In addition, only 16 percent of Obamacare enrollees feel financially prepared to handle future healthcare costs, compared to 24 percent for employer plans and 27 percent for Medicare and 17 percent in Medicaid plans.

A majority of the enrollees in Obamacare have lower incomes than those in employer plans, which could play a part in the worries about cost.

The survey of more than 3,800 adults also offered keen insights into the proliferation of narrow networks that restrict doctor choice. A majority of insured enrollees in Obamacare, employer and federal plans were willing to accept a smaller network of hospitals or doctors in exchange for lower payments.

About 59 percent surveyed would choose a smaller network of hospitals and 58 percent for doctors. That is an increase from 2013, when about 50 percent would choose smaller networks.

The reason is again linked to concerns about cost.

All insured consumers, not just Obamacare enrollees, rank price at or near the top of the factors they deem important to choosing a health plan, Deloitte said.

Via: Washington Examiner

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[VIDEO] Chuck Todd Lectures Ben Carson Over ‘Black Lives Matter’ Movement

In an interview with Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, host Chuck Todd demanded to know why the GOP contender had been critical of the left-wing “Black Lives Matter” movement: “...you were also, in an earlier interview this week, asked about the Black Lives Matter movement. And you called it ‘silly.’ Why did you call it silly?”

 Carson explained how Todd had taken his words completely out of context: “I don't recall calling it ‘silly,’ but what I called silly is political correctness going amuck. That's what's silly....I guess it was Martin O'Malley who said, you know, ‘black lives matter, white lives matter,’ he got in trouble for that and had to apologize. That's what – that's what I'm talking about is silly. Of course all lives matter.” - 

Carson added: “You know, for a young black man, the most likely cause of death is homicide. That is a huge problem that we need to address in a very serious way.”

Todd proceeded to parrot the liberal movement’s talking points:

Well, and that is what the Black Lives Matter movement is doing and why they criticize politicians for saying all lives matter because their point is, until – that there is inequality here. That particularly – you brought up African-American men and that overall stat – but think about the issue of police custody, that an African-American is more likely to die in police custody than any other race or ethnicity.

Carson pushed back: “Yeah, but, again, I think we need to look at the whole picture. One of the things that I always like to point out to people is, how about we just remove the police for 24 hours? Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue?...We need to be a little more mature...”

Wrapping up the interview minutes later, Todd plucked out a question from social media: “Alright, I'm going to close here with a question from a Facebook poster. And this one came from Victor Roush. Simple question, ‘Does the Bible have authority over the Constitution?’”

Carson replied: “He said that's a simple question? That is not a simple question by any stretch of the imagination.”

Todd rephrased: “A simply worded question, how's that?”

Carson observed: “I think probably what you have to do is ask a very specific question about a specific passage of the Bible and a specific portion of the Constitution. I don't think you can answer that question other than out of very specific context.”

Via: Newsbusters

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Would Women Be OK Without Planned Parenthood?

Will women have access to the health services they need if the government defunds Planned Parenthood?

That depends on whom you ask.

“Absolutely,” said Jay Hobbs, communications director for Heartbeat International, a pro-life organization that assists with pregnancies.

“If Planned Parenthood were gone tomorrow, the nation’s 2,500 pregnancy help centers, medical clinics, maternity homes and non-profit adoption agencies would continue to offer true choice, true empowerment to every mother who is facing an unexpected pregnancy.

Kathleen Eaton Bravo, founder of a pro-life network of medical clinics calledObria Foundation, has a different response.

“No,” she said bluntly.

Are we ready in the pro-life community to meet the needs of those women? No. I’m sorry to say, after 40 years, no.

Two decades ago, Bravo quit her job as a successful businesswoman to challenge organizations like Planned Parenthood in California, where in 2011, more than 1 million abortions were performed.

She has since opened five pro-life clinics and one mobile unit, which have helped save “thousands” of babies from being aborted. (Bravo said her organization has a “conversion rate” of about 80 percent, saving more than 6,000 babies.)

But if Congress defunds Planned Parenthood, Bravo believes that the pro-life community isn’t ready to handle the number of women they would need to serve.

“We are reactive in the pro-life movement. We are not proactive,” Bravo said. “The issue is, if we defund Planned Parenthood … we don’t have a competitive medical model under a branded name to compete.”

Out With the Old, In With the New

Planned Parenthood Federation for America President Cecile Richards has said stripping the organization of its federal funding would restrict “millions” of women from access to fundamental health care services.

Besides providing abortions, the organization offers breast and cervical cancer screenings, birth control, STI testing and treatment and well-woman exams.

Planned Parenthood claims that millions of low- and middle-income women across the country rely on these services.

Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, a nonprofit that focuses on health care policy, believes that these services are not exclusive to Planned Parenthood. If the organization were defunded tomorrow, she said, “women would still have access to services.”

Via: Daily SIgnal

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Liberal Seattle CEO who instituted minimum salary of $70,000 finds that doesn’t work so well

In a way, I have to admit, I have some sympathy for Dan Price and his quixotic quest to battle “income inequality” by instituting a minimum salary of $70,000 for all employees of his company. Not for the cause itself, which is merely the latest trend in left-wing economic illiteracy, but I too once ran a business in which I thought I could do amazing things by paying people way more than their experience levels or qualifications would earn them anywhere else.

It didn’t work for two reasons. First, a business can’t survive when employees can’t generate enough value to give you a big enough return on what you pay them. And if they can’t do that because you paid them too much, that’s not on them. It’s on you. Second, people don’t appreciate what they haven’t really earned. You think they’re going to be grateful and loyal to you because you were so good to them. It doesn’t work that way.

So as soon as I heard some months back that Price was going to wage his own one-man war against “income inequality” by paying everyone at Gravity Payments a minimum of $70,000 - and would even cut his own pay to help the company swing it - it wasn’t hard to see this coming:

What few outsiders realized, however, was how much turmoil all the hoopla was causing at the company itself. To begin with, Gravity was simply unprepared for the onslaught of emails, Facebook posts and phone calls. The attention was thrilling, but it was also exhausting and distracting. And with so many eyes focused on the firm, some hoping to witness failure, the pressure has been intense.

More troubling, a few customers, dismayed by what they viewed as a political statement, withdrew their business. Others, anticipating a fee increase — despite repeated assurances to the contrary — also left. While dozens of new clients, inspired by Mr. Price’s announcement, were signing up, those accounts will not start paying off for at least another year. To handle the flood, he has already had to hire a dozen additional employees — now at a significantly higher cost — and is struggling to figure out whether more are needed without knowing for certain how long the bonanza will last. 

Two of Mr. Price’s most valued employees quit, spurred in part by their view that it was unfair to double the pay of some new hires while the longest-serving staff members got small or no raises. Some friends and associates in Seattle’s close-knit entrepreneurial network were also piqued that Mr. Price’s action made them look stingy in front of their own employees.

Then potentially the worst blow of all: Less than two weeks after the announcement, Mr. Price’s older brother and Gravity co-founder, Lucas Price, citing longstanding differences, filed a lawsuit that potentially threatened the company’s very existence. With legal bills quickly mounting and most of his own paycheck and last year’s $2.2 million in profits plowed into the salary increases, Dan Price said, “We don’t have a margin of error to pay those legal fees.”

It wasn’t just good, experienced employees who had a problem with the plan. So did at least one employee who was a recipient of a huge raise:

Via: Canada Free Press

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[CARTOON] The Obama Recovery

Via: Western Journalism

MASSACHUSETTS; Somerville mayor hits back at Bobby Jindal over sanctuary cities

Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone today slammed Republican presidential candidate Bobby Jindal's call to charge “sanctuary city” mayors as accomplices in crimes committed by illegal immigrants as a campaign ploy and an appeal to the “lowest common denominator.”

“Come and get me,” Curtatone charged in a Boston Herald Radio interview, shortly after Jindal took to the station airwaves to detail his proposal. “You say something absurd, you fear monger, you play to the crowd … we're smarter than that.

“I love listening to Jindal, because I swear if you didn't know who he is, you swear it was Gomer Pyle,” the Democrat added. “We shouldn't lower ourselves to the lowest common denominator, and that's the brain of … Bobby Jindal.”

Jindal, the Louisiana governor who has framed himself as an anti-establishment candidate in the crowded Republican field, also said local mayors and elected officials in sanctuary cities – or those that defy federal immigration authorities – should be held liable civilly by victims or their families for the crimes of illegal immigrants.

He pointed to the death of Kathryn Steinle, who was killed in San Francisco, allegedly by an illegal immigrant who was released from police custody despite a detention request from the feds. The crime has sparked the push behind “Kate's Law” and has been repeatedly referenced by Republican presidential candidates, including Donald Trump, when discussing immigration.

Jindal said mayors like Curtatone – who has signed an executive order pulling the city out of the federal Secure Communities program – should be “criminally liable as accessories,” adding that, “If you're going to flaunt (sic) federal law, there should be a consequence.”

But Curtatone rejected that thinking, pointing to what he called “misinformation” around the concept of sanctuary cities, which he said is an effort to build trust in communities, not give criminals a free pass.

He said in the case of Steinle's murder, Somerville would have turned the suspect over to federal immigration authorities.

“Unfortunately that terrible incident (in San Francisco) is being used to describe an entire population and its being used by people like Bobby Jindal who say the most absurd, offensive things against one segment of the population. As a society, we have more compassion than that,” Curtatone said.

He said Jindal's comments are simply a move to push him “beyond the 1 percent right now” in presidential polls. He sarcastically said “Sheriff Bobby Jindal” hasn't put him in handcuffs.

“More like, Deputy Barney Fife, has not arrested me yet,” Curtatone said.

Via: Boston Herald

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CALIFORNIA: DOCTOR SHORTAGE LOOMS AS OBAMACARE ROLLS OUT, SAYS EXPERT

America faces a deep shortage of doctors as Obamacare is implemented. That is the view shared by 100 health care professionals who gathered at the 33rd annual meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness in Ontario, California over the weekend. They forecast a future of decreased quality of health care and access to doctors if current policies continue.

“What do I mean by medical meltdown? Well, sadly ,I’m here to tell you that the medical care you’ve enjoyed in the past in your life is simply not going to be there in the future,” said orthopedic surgeon Dr. Lee Hieb, who addressed the conference.

Just like a black hole is so dense that no light gets out, “We have so much regulation that almost no medical care gets out,” Hieb told the audience. “We have over 160,000 pages of Medicare regulation and counting.” She continued, “Obamacare is Medicare on steroids.”

“The reason we have a shortage of doctors today and we’re going to get worse in the future began in the early 70s because the great gurus of government looked around and they said probably…look at all this money that’s being sent to all these specialists.”  Hieb went on to say that government bureaucrats decided to limit the number of specialists.

However, Lieb notes,  that the U.S. is only seeing 350 new general surgeons a year. That is not even a replacement rate, she observed.

Hieb professed that being taxed to death and having to send so much money to the government is a disincentive for doctors to work at full capacity.

“Our young people are not trained as well as we were,” she continued.

“We are now the number one profession for suicide. We lose 400 doctors a year to suicide. That’s like losing an entire medical school,” Hieb stated.

Hieb also cited a shortage of “things” or medical supplies–the first she has seen in her 40 years of involvement in medicine. She recalled almost having to close an operating room for shortages of propofols, which are used to put people to sleep; as well as shortages of tetanus vaccine, shoulder catheters and thyroid medication shortages, among other items.

The cause, according to Hieb, is “this huge over-regulatory environment.”

She elaborated on the thyroid example, saying,

These are old medicines that have lost their patent and they’ve been produced without a problem in these factories for years, but the government rolls in and says you have to bring this factory up to some arbitrary new standard and these guys say, well, we can’t do that because–guess what? you guys price fixed. You tell us what you’re going to pay, Medicare’s going to pay for this stuff. We can bill anything we want to, we get paid what you tell us you get paid, and now you’re telling us we have to spend all this money to modernize our factories. We’re going to lose money, we can’t do that, so we’re going to shut down. So after a few factories shut down in one of these nationwide shortages in classic bureaucratic fashion, the government says well wait a minute, wait a minute, you can’t shut down.

You said, “what, what do you mean we can’t shut down?”

[They say] Well, okay, I guess you can shut down, but you’re going to have to give us six months notice.

They just don’t get it.

She pointed the audience to Venezuela as a picture of the “end game.”

Hieb cited a story written by Dr. Richard Amerling and published in the Wall Street Journal (and summarized in Newsmax) that documented the plight of Pedro Gonzalez. Gonzalez, Amerling wrote, checked into a leading Venezuelan public hospital for life saving heart valve surgery. About two months later, all of the cardiac ward patients were discharged due to lack of operating room supplies according to a letter issued. Gonzalez collapsed and died a week later.

“The free market doesn’t come up with shortages this way, but we are starting to see it,” Hieb said. “If you live in a very affluent area and you’re privately insured and your neighbors are privately insured, you will probably not…won’t see it as quickly as other places.”

Hieb referenced work in an Arizona area where 85% of payers were government-paid through Medicare, Medicaid and Tricare. Four orthopedic surgeons would do the work that 10, 11 or 12 in more affluent Flagstaff would take on. She said the average orthopedic surgeon in America takes care of 12,000 people. Conversely, the region where Hieb worked was serving approximately 90,000, which later ballooned to 120,000 as Hieb left and only three surgeons remained. She said her 53-year-old former colleague from the region died thereafter under the long and strenuous work.

“The big black hole is already starting to open up,” Hieb said.

She mentioned traveling two hours to reach an obstetrician, waiting six hours to be seen by an orthopedic surgeon, or three or four months to see a rheumatologist as problems facing those in less affluent regions.

“In a free market, when there’s a shortage, it gets filled,” Hieb said.

Hieb then launched into health recommendations for “how to save yourself.” She said going into the future, “you want to be so healthy that you don’t need a doctor” in light of the impending medical shortages which she had detailed.

Dr. Hieb is listed in the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness program as “an orthopedic surgeon specializing in spine surgery and a past president of the Assn. of American Physicians and Surgeons.”

Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana

Via: Breitbart

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Government Slowly Kills the Private Sector – And Blames the Victim for Its Sputtering Demise

One of the advantages Big Government advocates have in their efforts to end the private sector – is the size of the victim. A $17-trillion-a-year economy is so huge – it almost always takes a lot of time to dismantle.

It’s like taking down those giant oliphants in the “Lord of the Rings.” Our economy can take a LOT of government arrows – and continue its march forward. Slowed, bowed – but still moving.

And here’s the really obnoxious part. As the private sector is dragged down by the government assaults – Big Government advocates say it’s proof that the PRIVATE SECTOR doesn’t work.

Which is like being shot – and then having the shooter yell at you for bleeding on them.

Occasionally, the government attack is so huge – it does rapid, recognizable damage. And the line of correlation can be easily drawn. See: ObamaCare.

Far more often, the injuries take time to accrue. An ever-increasingly regulated sector doesn’t go from 60mph to 0mph. It goes from 60 to 55. Then 55 to 50. Then 50 to 45….

So the Big Government advocates get away with the damage they do – and with blaming their victims for ultimately collapsing in a taxes-and-regulations-addled heap.

We Less Government advocates do our best to make people understand all of this. We are, as always, woefully outgunned – but we occasionally win a skirmish here or there.

For instance, we have successfully explained the damage government is poised to do to the Internet. With Network Neutrality. With unilateral regulatory “Reclassification” – which is the Barack Obama Administration all by itself deciding to impose on the Web 1934 land line telephone and railroad law.

We have successfully detailed the looming huge regulations. And huge taxes. And how any new regulation diminishes private investment – and how these huge new regulations will hugely diminish it.

In short, how the Internet was pre-Obama likely the freest part of the private sector – and is now likely the most under government’s thumb.

How do we know we won this fight? Because we never were given a chance to actually fight it.

Big Government advocates didn’t get Congress to pass a law creating Net Neutrality and/or Reclassification – because they couldn’t. Big Government big-footing the Web has never been popular. In 2010, ninety-five Democrats signed a pre-election Net Neutrality pledge. All ninety-five lost.

Having lost the messaging war – Big Government advocates turned to tyranny. And had three unelected Democrat bureaucrats at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unilaterally slam the Net.

How else do we know we won? Because they are spending a lot of time trying do undo our explanations of what they’ve done.

FCC Chief (Tom Wheeler) Argues That Net Neutrality Won’t Gut Broadband Investment

Tom Wheeler Claims (Reclassification) Order Won’t Affect Taxes

The new imposition has only been in place for less than half a year. Most of the (tens of) thousands of pages of new regulations – haven’t even yet been written.

And the Internet sector is 1/6th of our entire economy – i.e. HUGE. This oliphant won’t immediately keel over.

Thus, to say that the mostly-unwritten rules haven’t yet broken the Net – therefore the rules will NEVER break the Net – is…absurd. But Big Government advocates specialize in the absurd.

So Far Net Neutrality Hasn’t Broken The Internet

Net Neutrality Hasn’t Stalled Investment After All

The investment argument is especially ridiculous. Many companies plot their investment allocations YEARS in advance. They are currently investing money for which they budgeted – in the 2000s.

What hasn’t taken very long – is Big Government advocates using this newly minted Big Government to attack the sector.

FCC Swamped by 2,000+ Net Neutrality Complaints Against ISPs

Of course, taking them at their word is always…dubious.

Yet Again, the Left is Caught Fraudulently Faking Support for its Ridiculous Policies

We can’t be sure if the FCC has actually received 2000+ complaints. After all, we were told – about theactually-fifty-fifty nature of the Net Neutrality Comments the FCC received – that they were overwhelmingly pro-Big Government.

Remember when we said the FCC hadn’t yet actually fleshed out the rules? That’s not nearly all of the uncertainty that exists.

What is not clear, however, is exactly how the FCC is supposed to enforce its rules against companies that violate the open Internet laws. 

Speaking earlier this week in front of a congressional subcommittee, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler admitted to the commission that the FCC had yet to figure out how exactly it will be able to exercise its authority over ISPs and enforce penalties.

Get that? The FCC has “yet to figure out how exactly it will be able to exercise its authority over ISPs and enforce penalties.” This MASSIVE uncertainty won’t hurt the Internet at all, I’m sure.

But wait a minute. Wheeler and his FCC have in fact already figured out how to use its undefined, amorphous power-grabbed powers to line its pockets at the expense of We the Consumers – I mean, enforce penalties.

AT&T Faces $100 Million Fine in FCC’s First-Ever Net-Neutrality Case

Seems pretty figured out to me.

Of course, every penny government forces out of companies – forces companies to charge us more for their goods and services. Because pro-consumer – or something.

Anti-consumer is huge new government power grabs – with prospectively tens of thousands of new pages of regulation. Which are “in place” – but haven’t yet been written.

Anti-consumer is a huge grab that empowers the government to impose confiscatory new taxes. And unlimited fines.

All of that – and more – is what Big Government just did to the Internet.

Think that won’t damage the Web? Not necessarily now – but over time as the government poison seeps throughout the system?

Of course you know it will. So too do the Big Government advocates.

They just can’t admit it – and must instead blame the private sector at which they take perpetual aim.

Via: Red State

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CA intervenes in Planned Parenthood video sting

Undercover videos that sent Planned Parenthood into crisis mode have drawn the concern of California Attorney General Kamala Harris, whose interest in reviewing their legality helped put the Golden State at the center of a dramatic national controversy.

Harris, embarked on a campaign to replace outgoing Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., promised lawmakers to “carefully review” the organization behind the tapes for “any violations of California law,” according to the Sacramento Bee.

The lawmakers, four Congressional Democrats, had “asked Harris and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to determine if officials from the Irvine-based Center for Medical Progress broke any laws when they posed as workers for a biotech company while recording Planned Parenthood physicians without their consent,” the Bee reported.

“Reps. Jan Schakowsky, Zoe Lofgren, Jerry Nadler and Yvette Clarke cited reports that founder David Daleiden filed paperwork to create a phony entity. They also asked the state’s top law enforcement official to look into possible violations of the Invasion of Privacy Act, which bars recording people without their permission.”

Swift litigation

The company, StemExpress, swiftly filed suit to protect themselves, drawing a temporary restraining order from Los Angeles Superior Court. According to the Associated Press, the order “prohibits the Center for Medical Progress from releasing any video of three high-ranking StemExpress officials taken at a restaurant in May. It appears to be the first legal action prohibiting the release of a video from the organization.”Unlike previous efforts by activists to cast an unflattering light on the organization, the videos produced by the Center for Medical Progress captured lurid remarks concerning the sale and use of aborted fetal body parts and organs. In addition to creating a public relations mess for Planned Parenthood, the videos also raised alarms for a company that acts as procurement middleman between the abortion provider and researchers desirous of the parts.

In one video, a former StemExpress employee told the Center for Medical Progress that she expected to be “drawing blood” rather than “procuring tissue from aborted fetuses,” according to the Federalist.

Center for Medical Progress David Daleiden hit back at the StemExpress suit in a statement, calling the litigation “meritless” and accusing StemExpress of fostering an “illegal baby parts trade,” AP added.

Via: California Political Review

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Obama Takes Air Force One Jet And Marine One Helicopter To Play Round Of Golf Less Than 48 Hours Before Today’s Big Climate Speech…

Via: Weasel Zippers

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Kasich makes quick rise in polls

It could have been embarrassing: The sitting governor of Ohio left off the primetime Fox News debate stage in his home state because of low poll numbers.

But in the two weeks since he launched his presidential campaign, John Kasich has bypassed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and other Republicans who have been in the race longer.

Last week, the main super-PAC backing Kasich’s candidacy announced it raised more than $11 million, tapping into a surprisingly deep well of influential Ohioans for a haul that puts him squarely in the middle of a well-funded pack of GOP candidates.

“Someone in that campaign knows what they’re doing,” said Tom Rath, a Republican strategist in New Hampshire, where Kasich has leaped into third place, according to one recent poll.

And Kasich’s late entrance — he was the 16th Republican to launch a presidential bid — appears to have been perfectly timed to give him a boost in the polls nationally, potentially propelling him onto Fox News’s primetime debate stage this week. 

“The timing was good,” said Doug Heye, the former communications director for the Republican National Committee. “But don’t forget, this is a guy who has had a national presence for a while now, first in Congress, and then as the host of a Fox News show. He’s got that base of people who already knew him from being cabled into people’s homes and many of them just needed a reminder.”

If Kasich can ride the momentum he has onto the debate stage this week, it will be a big early victory for his campaign. Fox News is capping the number of candidates at 10 based on national polling numbers. 

Right now, Kasich is alone in ninth place with 3.5 percent support, according to RealClearPolitics average of polls, more than double the support he had at the beginning of July. Kasich leads Christie and Perry, his two closest challengers for the final spots on the debate stage.

A Quinnipiac University survey released last week shows Kasich in even better shape, taking 5 percent support and sharing eighth place with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). In the same poll from May, Kasich was tied for 10th place with only 2 percent support.

It’s the second national poll to be released since Kasich officially launched his bid for the White House that shows him making gains. A CNN/ORC poll that went into the field the day after Kasich’s announcement also registered an uptick in support, from 2 percent to 4 percent, putting him in an eighth-place tie with Christie and Ben Carson. 

Via: The Hill

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