Planned Parenthood – Page 2

Looks like our time is up

With the days before the primary dwindling down to a precious few, it appears the 2016 Presidential road show will be going elsewhere. A check of the five remaining candidates finds that only three will be in our two states, as Republicans John Kasich and Donald Trump have Maryland events (in Rockville and Hagerstown, respectively), while Hillary Clinton will be in Wilmington, Delaware.

It’s been nice to see that the Eastern Shore and slower lower Delaware matter to the Trump campaign, despite the fact his message wasn’t appreciably different than any of the last five dozen stump stops he’s made. I listened to a part of his Harrington speech today on the radio and found that he rambles on tremendously. But someone may be righting the ship in Trump’s campaign a little bit because he is focusing on the rural areas which are the backbone of his support; meanwhile, Kasich and Clinton are in the urban strongholds you might expect them to inhabit. This doesn’t seem like fertile territory for Bernie Sanders, but I am disappointed Ted Cruz hasn’t made it over to this end of Maryland. (One caveat: he has no events on his page beyond tomorrow so perhaps we may see a last-minute visit from the Senator.)

Closer to home, it’s worth pointing out that U.S. Senate candidate Kathy Szeliga is in Salisbury for two events tomorrow at Devage’s and the Brick Room. It figures: I can walk to Devage’s but I will be in Easton at the #ProtestPP rally while she’s here. It’s keeping up my record of not meeting the Delegate, who is the only one of the four most prominent contenders I haven’t met recently. She’ll spend the last Saturday of the campaign on the Eastern Shore before moving across the bridge for the duration. No word on whether the motorcycle is coming.

Honestly, I’m glad the primary is almost over since it seems like at least on a national level this campaign really started the day after the 2014 election. It’s actually somewhat amazing that Maryland will be in the late thirties when it comes to order of primary yet is enough of a player to garner attention from all five remaining candidates. This still doesn’t mean I don’t think the primary process shouldn’t be streamlined into six weeks where eight states apiece vote, beginning after the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary kick off the proceedings in late spring, but in this case it’s worked out to be an exciting and maddening race.

So on Wednesday or thereabouts I can clean the sidebar and add in the Libertarian, Green Party, and unaffiliated candidates for various offices. Culling is actually great fun.

So get out and vote on Tuesday. After I cover the #ProtestPP tomorrow I will write up my Congressional endorsement for Sunday. That should be interesting.

How to lose a Congressional race in one speech

If any post I’ve ever done deserved to be put up on 4/20, it’s this one. But suffice to say there are times when the perfect becomes the enemy of the good, and for Congressional candidate Mike Smigiel that point may have been reached.

On Monday I received a press release from the Smigiel campaign promoting his appearance as a featured speaker at the National Cannabis Festival, an event to be held Saturday in Washington, D.C. Held for the first time this year, the Cannabis Festival promotes itself as:

More than just a festival, NCF is a chance to connect with members of the cannabis community and industry from across the country while enjoying a full day of music, games, delicious food and drink.

In the release, there was a rationale provided for Smigiel’s remarks:

The Maryland 1st District Congressional Race is of national importance and serves as a barometer to gauge the mood of the country regarding removal of barriers for the cannabis industry. (Andy) Harris is seeking re-election in a tough primary that Marylanders will be voting in on April 26th, and Del. Smigiel has released polling that suggests that when voters know of Harris’ votes, including his actions with cannabis prohibition, residents will not vote for Harris at an overwhelming majority. Industry supporters are upset because Congress renewed the prohibition on the District’s government from spending any funds to set up a legal market for marijuana distribution and taxation, a move lead by Congressman Harris. There is a deep seeded negative sentiment against Rep. Harris as he is seen as an exemplification of the worst of big government overreach when he interfered with District voters’ attempt to follow Colorado, Washington State and others in exercising political autonomy with Initiative 71. The initiative appeared on the ballot and was approved by voters, only to have Rep. Harris successfully lead the effort to block the District government’s implementation efforts. Since that time, several unintended consequences have resulted from Rep. Harris’ paternalism.

The District is still unable to tax and or otherwise control the manufacturing and distribution of marijuana thus is losing out on tens of millions of dollars of new tax revenue.

Harris’ vote against the District not only exemplifies the overreach of big government it is also indicative of an arrogance where elected servants of our government presume to have a better understanding of our needs than we, the electorate do. The ramifications are far reaching throughout Maryland’s 1st District as well, affecting opportunities for the development of agricultural crops, business, and also resulted in a boycott of Ocean City, Maryland.

I get all that argument (aside from the state’s rights argument, since the District of Columbia is not a state), but perhaps the weekend before the election is not the best time to be hanging out with a crowd that few in the First District would identify with. Even worse is the idea of promoting recreational drug use (and let’s get real, most of the support for the “cannabis industry” isn’t so we can produce more industrial hemp) at a time when the local headlines often shout about yet another death by drug overdose. Simply put, the optics are really bad on this one. What may grab you another handful of votes among those who are passionate about the issue will turn off a lot of people who are already concerned about the impact of drugs on crime and on society at large.

And in what may be the sharpest 180 degree turn ever in politics, the chances are pretty good (since he appeared at last August’s rendition) that Smigiel will spent at least some of his morning protesting Planned Parenthood in Easton since that event is also Saturday. (Harris may also make an appearance for that same reason.) I don’t think the devout pro-life crowd would much approve of the National Cannabis Festival, and in the case of abortion Harris can claim pro-life groups’ support despite the objections Smigiel puts up.

There is definitely a libertarian streak in me that likes how Smigiel looks at certain issues, and he’s made his campaign into one that is a near-constant diatribe about what he feels is the hypocrisy between Andy Harris the campaigner and speaker and Andy Harris the Washington insider Congressman. A lot of that is legitimate, but the question is just how much of that comes with the territory. Unfortunately, purists seldom make it far in politics, especially on the conservative side.

Yet in making his point about how Harris is not a Tenth Amendment kind of guy, Smigiel is taking the time that I feel would be better served in the district trying to win votes in what’s already an uphill battle. I know Mike’s been working hard for nearly a year to make his case to the people of the First District, but unless there’s a fundraising element involved in his Washington trip (and I highly doubt this) in my opinion it’s an unforced error to spend valuable time just before the primary to tell the cannabis industry how bad Andy Harris is.

Despite what Jim Ireton might believe, the election for the First District seat occurs April 26. If Mike Smgiel loses a close election, I suppose he will have the cold comfort of losing on a particular principle.

The culture of death strikes again

By Cathy Keim

As Michael has mentioned already, #ProtestPP is having another nationwide protest on April 23, 2016, to keep attention on Planned Parenthood’s disgusting practice of harvesting baby parts from the babies aborted in their facilities. The protests are also to bring attention to the indictment of the undercover citizen journalist that made the videos exposing PP, David Daleiden, by the Harris County, Texas, District Attorney Devon Anderson. I covered that miscarriage of justice here.

Now there is even more reason to protest because David Daleiden’s home in California was raided on the orders of California Attorney General Kamala Harris.

On Tuesday, in what appears to be a politically motivated move, officials from Harris’s office raided the home of David Daleiden, the undercover investigator who exposed Planned Parenthood’s trafficking of aborted babies’ body parts. These officials took personal property from Daleiden – including camera equipment and copies of unreleased Planned Parenthood videos.

As was the case with Harris County DA Devon Anderson, it turns out the AG Kamala Harris has received campaign contributions from pro-abortion entities. Kamala Harris is currently running for the US Senate.

Also according to LifeNews, California Planned Parenthood organizations and their board members have contributed $81,000 to Harris’s election campaigns, both for Attorney General and her current campaign for a U.S. Senate seat.

David Daleiden worked for three years to expose Planned Parenthood’s nationwide racket to profit from the babies that they murder in their facilities. His videos showed that not only was PP selling the baby parts for profit, but that they were illegally changing the abortion procedure to obtain more profitable parts to sell. Instead of prosecuting PP for their illegal activities and making efforts to protect the women being subjected to altered abortion processes, the DA and AG have gone after the man who exposed the illegal activity.

If David Daleiden had been a whistleblower exposing corruption in any other industry, he would be hailed as a hero. However, since he is a Christian seeking to protect unborn babies, the political regime in place is seeking to crush him. Every citizen should be appalled at the overreach and abuse of power exhibited by the government officials in their attack on free speech, freedom of the press and our guarantee of equal protection under the law.

Increasingly our government is acting as Leviathan to crush all resistance rather than acting according to the will of the people. None of us has the ability to resist the power that the government can exert by using our own taxpayer funded entities against us.

David Daleiden has been indicted, had his home raided, and his personal property confiscated. How long is it before his taxes are audited? I am sure that the IRS would love to bring a good dose of their terror to the mix.

Go here to find the #ProtestPP location nearest to you. (Editor’s note: By my count there are 200 to choose from, even in locations without PP offices.) Join us as we let our voices be heard while we still can.

This kind of abuse by government officials is to teach the rest of us a lesson and to scare us into conforming to their rules. If we silence ourselves because of fear, then the abusive officials will continue to overreach their authority.

I am not a huge Ayn Rand fan, but she did get this right:

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.

Everyone of us breaks a myriad of government laws, regulations, or rules every day. The government has become so large that no one can possibly avoid doing something wrong. When you file your taxes you just hope that you or your accountant got everything correct. If you own a business, you are just one regulatory agency visit away from disaster.

You can be sure that if the decision is made to go after you because you annoyed a government official by being pro-life or Christian or pro-traditional marriage or maybe you spoke out on immigration, or opined that the safety of children requires that the transgender laws be blocked, then the government can make your life very difficult. In fact, that is the root of political correctness: fear of social shaming or worse for not conforming to the standard position on any of the many topics that the elites have deemed sacred.

This has reached the ridiculous point where Attorney General Loretta Lynch told the Senate Judiciary Committee in March, 2016 that “not only has she discussed internally the possibility of pursuing civil actions against so-called ‘climate change deniers,'” but she has “referred it to the FBI to consider whether or not it meets the criteria for which we could take action.”

Lynch is apparently following the lead of Harris and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, “both of whom have opened up investigations of ExxonMobil for allegedly lying to the public and their shareholders about climate change.”

Ah, the absurdity! But notice that California Attorney General Kamala Harris is in on this game. Harris is exhibiting a contempt for the citizen once again by using the power of the government to terrorize by way of investigating corporations for conducting their business.

Today, David Daleiden and Big Oil. Tomorrow it may be you!

An annual tradition, at least until the right to life is respected

Cathy sent this along to me. I’ll have to see how my calendar looks for that day.

On April 23, #ProtestPP will conduct the first annual nationwide protest at Planned Parenthood facilities nationwide, to be held on the 4th Saturday of April every year until the abortion chain no longer preys upon our communities.

We’ll call on Congress and the States to cut off all government funding to Planned Parenthood and bring charges against all those responsible for the horrific baby parts scandal. And we’ll demand that all charges against undercover journalist David Daleiden be dropped.

Join us April 23, 2016, from 9 to 11am at the Easton Planned Parenthood, 8579 Commerce Drive #102, Easton, MD 21601. (Emphasis mine.)

So we’ll see how upset the neighboring pediatrician becomes and how many police officers are sent to make sure the rowdy anti-abortion protestors don’t get out of hand, as happened last August.

Those who are deeply into the pro-life movement know that each January there is a protest in Washington, D.C. on the anniversary of the botched Roe v. Wade decision, which still stands after 43 years. (Sometimes, though, the SCOTUS reverses itself slowly – witness the 58 year period between Plessy v. Ferguson and the Brown v. Board of Education decision.) But a January protest often attracts less attention because, to be quite honest, fewer people want to stand out in the cold to participate. Summer soldiers, sunshine patriots, and all that.

April is a better month in the respect that it comes in the season of Easter, which symbolizes Christ’s victory over death. It’s a good time to advocate for victory over needless death to the unborn. Yet I hope and pray this is a tradition that’s short-lived because the Supreme Court gets a case which allows it to overturn Roe v. Wade – returning the question to the venues where it belongs (each individual state) and the federal spigot of funds to Planned Parenthood is permanently shut off.

A good turnout is essential, so spread the word.

Exploiting the weakest link

By Cathy Keim

Michael and I have both written about the Planned Parenthood (PP) undercover videos that showed that PP was selling baby body parts for profit. At first it seemed that the sheer horror of the videos might spur our politicians to defund PP, but that soon fizzled when Democrats blocked it. The Republicans punted since nothing is worth the risk of shutting down our government, not even the dehumanizing practice of selling baby parts.

Instead, David Daleiden and another pro-life activist, Sandra Merritt, who were posing as buyers of fetal tissue in the undercover investigative videos, were indicted by a Texas grand jury for this spurious offense:

(O)ne felony related to tampering with a governmental record and a misdemeanor count related to buying human tissue. The felony charge was in reference to the use of a fake ID. If convicted, Daleiden faces 20 years in prison while Planned Parenthood officials face no legal consequences for their actions.

So how can Daleiden be charged for pretending to buy fetal tissue, but Planned Parenthood is not charged when they clearly admit on the videos that not only do they sell fetal tissue, but that they alter the abortion procedures to obtain more valuable baby parts?

Pro-life groups, led by Senior Vice President of Operation Rescue Cheryl Sullenger, are asking that a special prosecutor be appointed to investigate because:

“There is now a pattern in Houston of District Attorney Devon Anderson’s office covering up abortion-related crimes,” she told LifeNews.

“In 2013, another Anderson-controlled grand jury failed to indict Houston abortionist Douglas Karpen, who was accused by three of his former employees of murdering babies born alive during shoddy late-term abortions by twisting their heads or slashing their throats. Photographic evidence provided to me showed injuries to large aborted babies that was consistent with those claims. Operation Rescue has good reason to believe that evidence was never presented to that grand jury,” Sullenger explained.

In addition, Lauren Reeder, a prosecutor in the Harris County District Attorney’s office, has been identified as “a non-compensated ‘Director’ on the 990 Tax Form for 2014 filed by Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast,” according to Steven Ertelt, writing at LifeNews.com.

While it has not been verified whether Reeder participated in the case, it still shows a potential bias in the department.

Finally, it was revealed that attorney Chip Lewis, who represented Houston abortionist Douglas Karpen before the grand jury, donated more than $25,000 to District Attorney Anderson’s re-election campaign.

I will certainly be keeping an eye on this investigation and perhaps the voters in Harris County, Texas, might want to consider voting out Anderson the next time they have a chance.

But what can we do in the meantime? I am glad you asked because I received this email today from Eric Scheidler, one of the organizers of Protest PP, which explains the “weak link” in the abortion industry.

Among the hundreds of hours of undercover footage that David Daleidan and his team released last summer, there was one bit of footage that didn’t get the publicity it deserved. At a National Abortion Federation conference in 2013, abortion provider Renee Chelian was caught on tape discussing the problem of disposing of aborted babies’ bodies. Chelian told the story of how her abortion facility was thrown into disarray when she lost her contract with a medical waste company. She tried everything to dispose of the remains of the babies she was killing, including duping a pet crematory to burn them up. At one point she had 5 months worth of fetal remains in rented freezers! Her takeaway? “We are all one incinerator away, or one incinerator company away from being closed.”

Created Equal, a pro-life group, noticed this weak link and decided to set up #ProjectWeakLink aimed at targeting the waste removal companies that are hired by Planned Parenthood facilities across the nation. The project is starting with Stericycle, the major medical waste service provider for PP. You can go here and sign the petition asking Stericycle to stop working with PP.

Created Equal is also asking that you contact Stericycle CEO Charles Alutto and tell them to stop disposing of medical waste for Planned Parenthood. You can reach Alutto at 847-607-2004 or calutto@stericycle.com.

I had a phone call from a young lady at Created Equal and she also requested that if anyone is near a Planned Parenthood facility and they see a medical waste truck on site, to please take a picture of the truck and send it to Created Equal along with the date and location as they are trying to find out who else is servicing Planned Parenthood facilities.

The culture of death is unrelenting its attack on life, but we can take positive action to resist. Pray for David Daleiden, Sandra Merritt, and their lawyers as they prepare their defense against these charges. Take part in #ProjectWeakLink, and pray that hearts will be changed and lives saved as abortion is exposed for the great evil that it is.

Andy Harris endorses Ben Carson: too little too late?

Multiple reports today revealed that our Congressman, Andy Harris, became the first member of Congress to endorse Dr. Ben Carson for President, taking time to join Carson on the campaign trail in South Carolina today. Said Harris, in part:

(Carson) will restore America to greatness – not as a punch line in a campaign, but as a belief in returning America to its Constitutional roots. What we saw in the debate last Saturday reminds us just how much we need someone thoughtful like Dr. Carson in the White House.

Given the position in the polls the good doctor (Carson, not Harris) has fallen to in the Presidential race, one has to wonder if this will stop the bleeding in Ben’s foundering campaign. Despite protestations to the contrary from Carson loyalists, there’s no question that he has lost his luster since being one of the frontrunners last fall. Currently on a national level Carson polls fifth with 6% of the vote, according to the RCP average. (To be fair, the most recent poll cited has Carson at a much more healthy 10 percent.) In the Palmetto State, Carson is also right around 6 percent, but that put him (on average) in last place among the six remaining GOP contenders, with one poll placing him in fifth.

So to say Carson has an uphill battle is to put it mildly. On a national political basis, one has to wonder if an endorsement by a Congressman, regardless of how well-known he is around the country, would have made more impact back in November when Carson was near the top.

But if you take this to a more local scale and consider the race Harris has at home, an endorsement of Carson could make more sense. If you polled the First Congressional District, I suspect Carson would at least double his national total and 10 percent is a significant chunk in the Congressional primary. If Carson is still in the race come April, there’s a pretty good chance he would do some campaigning in the region because it would be one of his stronger areas. (Maryland shares an April 26 date with four other states: Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.) A stop or two in the First District with the popular Carson could drive the pro-life constituency over to Harris, since his opponent Mike Smigiel has made hay over remarks Harris made at a Planned Parenthood protest in August.

And even if Carson is out of the running, I would say the chances are pretty good he’ll be assisting the Harris re-election bid to some extent, particularly in the primary. (I would think that prohibitive Democratic nomination favorite Jim Ireton will have a contrasting position to Harris’s on the subject, so there’s no real need for Carson to buttress Harris on social issues in the general election.) If you want a popular draw locally, you probably can’t go wrong with Carson.

So I’m going to count this as an endorsement more for the sake of the Congressman than the Presidential candidate. After all, besides being the leading voice against decriminalizing marijuana in Washington, D.C. there isn’t a whole lot Andy Harris is known for on a national scale. In certain areas of the GOP, this is an endorsement well worth making.

2016: a pivotal year

By Cathy Keim

Here I am writing this piece on January 3, 2016, after being absent for most of the month of December. I had a wonderful holiday filled with family and friends from all over the world, and I hope that you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year too.

My husband and I were just over in Washington, DC, to visit with some family and had the opportunity to go to the Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park. It’s a great zoo, but I was trying to figure out where in the Constitution it said that the federal government should be funding a world class zoo. I couldn’t remember where that would be.

The Smithsonian Institute receives about 70% of its funding from the government. This is just one example of how our tax dollars are spent on “worthy” projects that are not Constitutional, yet most of us don’t even think about it anymore. We are used to the federal government encroaching into every sphere of our lives.

I read some of the propaganda that they have gotten children to write, then posted for the visitors to read. One piece was from a young girl that was calling upon us to work harder to save the tigers. It was an excellent example of Common Core English skills using emotionally charged adjectives to drive people to take action. (I have read the lesson plans for just such activities. Common Core would rather have the students use emotion than reason to write a persuasive piece.)

I kept wondering why this young lady was so worked up about tigers when our federal leadership could not take the time to cut the funding for Planned Parenthood despite being caught red-handed selling baby parts for profit. It seems that tigers are much more important than easily replaceable babies.

The inability of our leaders to act upon such horrific revelations as selling baby parts leads to my premise that 2016 is a pivotal year for our Republic. We have sunk to such depths in our understanding of what the American Experiment is about that many are calling this our last chance to right the ship of state.

Over my break I took the opportunity to look through some of these assessments.

Daniel Horowitz listed the top ten betrayals of the GOP elites, all of which Michael and I have covered as they happened.

Phyllis Schlafly shocked people with her statement after the passage of the omnibus bill last month,

This is a betrayal of the grassroots and of the Republican Party. We thought we were electing a different crowd to stand up for America, and they didn’t. We’re extremely outraged by what Congress has done. Nancy Pelosi couldn’t have engineered it any better. I think the people are going to react by electing Donald Trump.

Maryland’s own Ann Corcoran has started a new blog to encourage people to join the fight to save America. She has done yeoman’s work for years at her Refugee Resettlement Watch to bring attention to the deeply flawed Refugee Resettlement program. Her new blog is American Resistance 2016!

They are changing America by changing the people! Will you fight to save it, or allow the greatest nation on earth to perish?

But the quote that most caught my attention was by Diana West. She was responding to a plea by Brent Bozell for conservatives to get behind Ted Cruz because he has been leading the fight for conservative issues. Diana said:

To be honest, if these were the only issues under discussion in this GOP presidential primary season I would hardly be able to make myself pay attention. It’s not that they are unimportant issues. Personally, I support every one of them. But they are not existential issues. They are not the issues on which the very future of the Republic hangs. They are issues that a responsible Republican House and Senate, if they were loyal to their oath and to their constituents, could today begin to rectify all by themselves. (Emphasis mine.)

Our elected leaders could have stopped the funding for Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, immigration, etc. but they did not. That is why the base is done with them. That is why Donald Trump is drawing such support.

I went to Donald Trump’s website and read his immigration plan.

His three bullet points are:

1. A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.

2. A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced.

3. A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.

It is remarkable that his plan is seen as remarkable. Most of the points on his plan are common sense, but our leadership seems to have lost their common sense.

Roger Simon says at PJ Media:

The rise of Donald Trump is a good thing, not because any one man can easily change the course of history, not because he’s necessarily the best candidate (although he could be), but because his rise indicates that a lot of people who often ignore things are waking up to this extreme situation.

We are in for a rough ride in 2016. Our GOP leadership has given President Obama a pass on everything he has wanted right up until he finishes his term with their funding of the omnibus bill.

Winston Churchill was the man for his time. He spent the years leading up to World War II pleading with his government to rearm and to prepare for the fight ahead. The appeasers refused to listen to him, but when the time came, he was ready to lead. Donald Trump has not spent the last decade in opposition to the government and many of his statements give me heartburn, but on the great issue of our time he is leading as no other candidate.

Another betrayal of the loyal base

By Cathy Keim

On Friday, October 23, 2015, the House is set to vote on H.R. 3762, a reconciliation bill that repeals parts of Obamacare and stops federal funding of Planned Parenthood for one year. This sounds pretty good since most of the base wants to stop Obamacare and Planned Parenthood. So, why is this a poison pill once again?

According to Lifenews:

H.R. 3762 is a special once-a-year measure called the “reconciliation bill.” Unlike almost every other kind of bill, the “reconciliation bill” cannot be filibustered in the U.S. Senate — so it can pass with only 51 votes, rather than 60 (of 100 senators). Republicans currently hold a narrow majority in the U.S. Senate, 54-46.

But before the bill can be considered by the Senate, it first must pass the House on October 23.

The bill contains two major sections:

* The bill would block, for one year, most federal payments to Planned Parenthood. At least 89% of federal funding of Planned Parenthood would be blocked by this bill.

* The bill would repeal a number of major components of the Obamacare health law, including two of the major provisions that will lead to rationing of lifesaving care — the “Independent Payment Advisory Board” and the “excess benefits tax.”

My first concern is that the defunding of Planned Parenthood is being added onto this bill to placate the base that was angered by Speaker Boehner pushing through a clean CR instead of fighting for defunding Planned Parenthood then. As he has done too many times before, the Speaker gave the President what he wanted without a fight. Apparently no hill is worth fighting for including a hill of tiny babies’ broken bodies being sold for profit.

In a déjà vu moment, the base was promised that the defund movement would get their moment by using the reconciliation process instead of attaching it to the CR. This bait and switch tactic has been used frequently to get something past the base.

I could have even perhaps been pacified except that now the House attaches the defund provision to a bill that only partially repeals Obamacare. We have been promised for years that our leaders would repeal Obamacare: not parts of it, but the whole sorry mess. The strongest argument for standing strong for repealing the entire Obamacare fiasco is that if it is divided into parts and the worst parts are repealed, then the others may be left to fester. It is best to root out all of the beast at one time.

Senators Mike Lee (R. Utah), Ted Cruz (R. Texas), and Marco Rubio (R. Florida) issued a joint statement today:

On Friday the House of Representatives is set to vote on a reconciliation bill that repeals only parts of Obamacare. This simply isn’t good enough. Each of us campaigned on a promise to fully repeal Obamacare and a reconciliation bill is the best way to send such legislation to President Obama’s desk. If this bill cannot be amended so that it fully repeals Obamacare pursuant to Senate rules, we cannot support this bill. With millions of Americans now getting health premium increase notices in the mail, we owe our constituents nothing less.

Why am I bothering to even care about any of this when we all know that the President will veto the bill when it reaches his desk and we do not have the votes to override the veto?

The two reasons that stand out are to make the President, Congressmen, and Senators go on record with their position on both issues and to prepare for the real vote to repeal Obamacare once a new president is in office.

The original Obamacare Bill was foisted upon us by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid with the reconciliation process, so it is only fitting that Obamacare should be repealed using the same reconciliation process. All we need is a president that won’t veto the bill.

This current effort only repeals part of Obamacare. I join with Cruz, Lee, and Rubio in demanding that our representatives make good on their promise to repeal Obamacare in its entirety. This is an excellent time to make an issue of it since we are all getting our new quotes on insurance. Multiple exchanges are shuttering their doors because they are losing so much money. A lot of us are facing 40% increases this year on our premiums on top of increases last year and the year before. And don’t forget that the benefits are not as good as our previous coverage, even though we are paying more.

So, by all means, use this opportunity to force the Democrats to own Obamacare. Why is the House only trying to repeal part of it? This should be a trial run for the real effort under the new President. Please, please show us some leadership and some effort. Make the case to the American people that none of this has turned out as promised. Showcase the fiascos of increased premiums, decreased coverage, broken exchanges, lack of portability, and push a bill through. Then stand strong in front of the American people and explain how the Democrats are forcing this mess upon us once again. Finally promise that you will use the same process after a new President is elected to repeal it. Line up the candidates and have them promise to sign the bill as soon as it reaches their desk. Put them on record that they will repeal Obamacare the minute that you can get the bill to them.

The base would stand up and cheer. They would be motivated to turn out in droves. The base would feel like somebody was listening to them. Instead, we have the House pushing through a partial repeal and it looks increasingly likely that we will be getting Paul Ryan as the new Speaker. Did I mention that the base feels betrayed?

We were all delighted when Mark Meadows (R-NC) made the courageous motion to replace Speaker Boehner. There seemed to be real momentum to coalesce around Daniel Webster (R-FL) so that he could reprise his role as a leader as he had done in the Florida state government, but then the rug was pulled out from under our feet and Paul Ryan is now proclaimed as the man to save us. Andy Harris has thrown his support to Ryan. Please prove me wrong, but I am expecting this to turn out poorly.

One would hope that Andy would not support Ryan unless Ryan gave up his demand that the motion to Vacate the Chair be removed, but I could not verify that it had been as of tonight.

The base is watching.

The struggle to save babies

Who will stand in the gap? That was the question asked in a presentation by Texas pastor Charles Flowers as he keynoted the eleventh annual Labor of Love fundraising banquet to benefit the Eastern Shore Pregnancy Center. Despite being plagued by some technical gremlins, Flowers presented a message mainly based on Proverbs 24:11, which oddly enough was the same verse used by Cathy Keim in her post the other day.

Flowers was introduced by local pastor David Diskin, who appealed to Christians to stand against abortion. We have to support life, Diskin added, despite living in a nation that overall has “slapped the hand of God.”

Pastor Flowers agreed. “We are in a day of adversity,” said Flowers, before asking who would deliver those drawn to death. He noted that the government had no interest in it, considering they were giving half a billion dollars to Planned Parenthood.

And regardless of the educators present that Flowers called “beacons of light” in our public schools, theirs was a “Godless field” as well. Even churches couldn’t fill the need as they were being pulled in many directions in their ministry. It was up to us to, as he put it, “trade babies for paper.”

Now before I continue with Pastor Flowers, it’s worth stating that the ESPC served over 350 women last year. Director Jackie Seldon relayed the story of one young woman and her boyfriend who were set on terminating the pregnancy until they saw the ultrasound. She changed her mind, and the boyfriend turned from passive observer to a guy who wanted a girl “so I can spoil her.” That’s the sort of success story they managed to achieve 50 times in the last year and their goal for this coming year was to make it to 85.

So the calculation of the paper needed to trade for each baby was $1,200. It’s a goal of about $100,000 overall.

Thus, despite the fact the government was against us, explained Flowers, we were called upon to answer to a higher law even at the price of civil disobedience. He cited the Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah, who fibbed in Exodus 1:19 that Hebrew women were stronger and delivered babies more quickly than Egyptian women, thus they could not follow Pharaoh’s order to execute Hebrew boys. “God places the value of life extremely high,” added Flowers, and challenged us to do the same.

There’s no doubt that in our secular society, where a child is but an expression of “choice” rather than a living human for whom the mother and father should take responsibility and (hopefully) bring up in a Godly manner, many have strayed from assigning a high value to life. There were close to 200 people at the dinner, but that is a small portion of the local population – I pray it’s but a small fraction of those around here who value life.

Even without the visual aid, Flowers illustrated the impact of nearly 60 million abortions. As he read off a list of states, he asked everyone who was born there or had parents or grandparents from there to stand. The last one was Maryland, so most stood. Regardless, if you took the 25 smallest states in population and imagined them wiped out, you’ve reached the number of babies aborted in the country since Roe v. Wade. (In political terms, it’s generally those states that only have 3 to 8 electoral votes. Those who support Planned Parenthood may not be against that since the bulk are loyal to the GOP.)

As I stated above, the goal is an ambitious one. We didn’t get there tonight, but if you count what the sponsors gave (nearly $8,000 based on the minimums listed in the program) and the amount donated and pledged tonight, they made significant progress of over $63,000. At $1,200 per, they have already made their budget for saving 50 babies, but more can and should be done.

If you are pro-life like me, or just want to assist a noble cause, the ESPC is always looking for both compassionate volunteers who can spare time as well as those who want to trade paper for babies. It may not be the most popular or politically correct cause, but it is a rightful one.

Protest Planned Parenthood holds second national protest

By Cathy Keim

Deliver those who are drawn toward death,
And hold back those stumbling to the slaughter.

If you say, “Surely we did not know this,”
Does not He who weighs the hearts consider it?

He who keeps your soul, does He not know it?
And will He not render to each man according to his deeds?

Proverbs 24:11-12

On Saturday, October 10, 2015, over 20,000 protestors turned out at 290 Planned Parenthood facilities across the nation to protest the selling of baby parts for profit. The protestors were against abortion, but were highlighting the gruesome practice of harvesting baby organs to sell for research. The availability of large numbers of aborted babies at Planned Parenthood facilities make for a profitable secondary business of supplying fetal organs and tissue to researchers, including the National Institutes of Health.

Although this is not a new phenomenon, it was brought to public attention by the videos released by the Center for Medical Progress, which led to Congressional investigations and the call to defund Planned Parenthood. So far, Congress has been unsuccessful in their quest to defund Planned Parenthood. Citizens are continuing to protest to keep the pressure on Congress to act.

This issue contributed to the resignation of Speaker John Boehner and it continues to reverberate in DC as hearings drag on and there is an effort to use reconciliation to force a bill through to the president’s desk. President Obama has said that he will veto any bill that defunds Planned Parenthood, and there are not the votes in the Senate to override a veto. This has led to talks of a government shutdown if the House refuses to fund the government over this issue.

Please note that it is the President that will shut the government down by refusing to accept the bill that the House sent to him, because he wants PP funded.

The new Speaker will have to face this problem right away as the continuing resolution (CR) that was passed under John Boehner will expire in December. We are heading towards a showdown anyway, because the President has indicated that he will not accept another CR.

We have not had a budget passed in years. The government has been lurching along on CR after CR. The President is in a rush to spend more and is chaffing under sequestration. The House needs a Speaker that will hold the line on spending, including a government shutdown if that is what it takes.

So, while the 20,000 protestors across the nation were protesting abortion and fetal tissue harvesting for profit, they were also part of the struggle between government factions. We cannot say the struggle is between Republicans and Democrats, because that is not the case. This is a struggle between Republicans that defend life and conservative values and Republicans that are working with the Democrats as part of the elites that rule over us.

The Democrats are united in their totalitarian quest to rule over us. They use their technique of dividing people into victim minority groups that pay allegiance to them for taking care of them to control and manipulate their followers.

The Republicans have not been able to consolidate the control of their base sufficiently to shut down all opposition. The conservative faction, while not the majority, is still large enough to bring down the Speaker and to cause occasional upsets like with the amnesty issue. The Chamber of Commerce funded, crony capitalist GOP faction despises the conservative base, but cannot quite break free yet.

Over and above the political factions are the media who decide what to report or not report. If you hold a protest and nobody reports on it, then did it really happen?

Here are pictures of the protest in Easton.

Almost all of the forty-four participants came to the first protest on August 22 and returned because they are convicted by the knowledge that babies are being sacrificed for human convenience and profit. We stood on the sidewalk with our signs and prayed for the abortionists and staff that work at the facility and the women that come for abortions to have a change of heart. The clinic was not open on Saturday, so we did not see any workers or clients.

Despite our peaceful gathering, many people think of pro-life activists as wild-eyed dangerous crazies because of the media’s depictions, which frequently tar all pro-lifers as doctor killers and abortion clinic bombers.

This Washington Post article reports that
a charter school was concerned when a PP facility was going to be located next to them. “Many parents worry that they will have to explain graphic images of aborted fetuses and the ideological underpinnings of one of the country’s most contentious debates to their young children,” wrote reporter Michael Alison Chandler.

Actually, at the first protest in Easton on August 22, that is exactly what happened. The pediatric clinic next to the PP facility was open during the protest. The pediatricians came out to complain that our signs were scaring their patients. We did not have any graphic photos, but they complained about a sign that said, “Abortion kills babies.” I mentioned to the pediatrician that we were trying to save babies so that they would have more patients. He shamefacedly acknowledged that we were pleading for babies to be spared a gruesome death.

A final nod to the uneven playing field that pro-life protestors face is the reality that big money is deployed against them. Planned Parenthood is a “non-profit” which pays it president, Cecile Richards, a salary of $590,000. Planned Parenthood receives over a half billion dollars in federal funding as well as millions more in state funding.

According to the Free Beacon, “Planned Parenthood has supported the Democratic party in the past. It poured $18 million into outside spending groups in 2014 and 2012, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Most of its nearly $6 million in direct contributions since 1990 have gone to Democrats. Every Democratic candidate except for (Jim) Webb has benefitted from this cash influx at the federal level. (Bernie) Sanders and (Lincoln) Chafee have received nearly $25,000 combined over the course of their careers.”

How much of our tax dollars are being used against us to buy the politicians’ protection? This is the typical cycle of the tax dollars funding an organization that then donates exclusively to the Democrat party to protect them.

Interestingly enough, this runs in the family. Cecile Richards is married to Kirk Adams, who just stepped down as Executive Vice President of the Service Employees International Union, SEIU. His last reported salary was only $229,880, so his wife was out earning him by a significant amount. More importantly, in the last presidential election, the Wall Street Journal reported that the SEIU donated over $70 million to Democrat candidates and knocked on millions of doors campaigning for them.

This, then, is a David vs. Goliath battle. The ordinary Americans that are calling for an end to the merciless killing of our smallest citizens are fighting against a taxpayer funded giant organization that pays protection money to our leaders.

But take heart: David won with God’s help.

Rally redux

Cathy Keim sent this along:

On August 22, over 78,000 people attended protests at over 300 Planned Parenthood centers, protesting that organization’s practice of harvesting and selling the body parts of aborted children, as revealed in a series of undercover videos released over the past three months. On October 10, the #ProtestPP coalition will again bring protests to hundreds of Planned Parenthood locations, including their center at 8579 Commerce Drive, #102, in Easton, MD.

Despite the controversy created by the undercover videos — including possible illegal activity — Planned Parenthood continues to receive over $500 million from state and federal governments. The organizers of #ProtestPP are calling for an end to this massive taxpayer subsidy for the nation’s largest abortion chain, and calling on all Americans of good will to oppose Planned Parenthood, especially by joining the growing pro-life presence at their hundreds of centers around the country.

“These undercover videos have shown the cruelty of abortion in a singular way,” said Cathy Keim. “It’s chilling to see Planned Parenthood’s doctors talk about how to crush an unborn child’s body in order to maximize profits from tissue sales. But too few of our fellow Americans have seen these videos. Our protest will invite everyone to learn the truth about Planned Parenthood, and to recognize that this injustice is taking place right here, in our own community.”

#ProtestPP is a coalition of state and national pro-life groups, headed by three national pro-life activist organizations: Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, Created Equal, and the Pro-Life Action League.

For more information please contact: Cathy Keim, (443) 880-5912, sckeima@gmail.com.

*********

Now it’s my turn. I won’t make this one because I have a prior commitment, but I encourage those who read this space to make the time if they can.

Perhaps we have lost the immediate battle thanks to a gutless soon-to-be-former Speaker who threw up the surrender flag and got a “clean” continuing resolution with mainly Democrat support, so it’s up to us to change hearts as we change minds.

The truth, the spin, and the battlefield

By Cathy Keim

John Boehner hit the Sunday morning TV circuit to explain why he is resigning and to spin his past performances. In addition, the various media are adding their spin and giving advice as to how to proceed. After reading through a variety of reports, it seems pretty well decided that:

John Boehner did the best he could under the circumstances.
Congress never really had the ability to stop the Obama agenda.
The conservatives/Tea Party types that caused this ruckus should go away.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy will be the next speaker.

One can go farther and depending on the source conclude that:

Our nation has grown too large to govern as a republic.
Christians should withdraw to enclaves because it is all going to the dogs.
There is no turning back from the path of destruction that we are on.

Before you give up hope and head for the hills with your guns, ammo, Bibles, and food, let us take a quick review of the comment sections of the same articles.

I do not read the comments on some sites because they are merely vile epithets interspersed with poor spelling, but other sites actually have rousing comment sections. There are many Americans that are still interested in the American Experiment and in their Christian faith. They are not giving up. Nor should we.

We need to think about the battlefield before we proceed. Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) says:

If we launch headfirst into leadership elections like this is a typical succession, without ever taking the time to diagnose our current ailments, we won’t heal the fractures in a Conference that has thus far proved unleadable. Simply reshuffling the deck won’t serve our members, and it especially won’t help our next slate of leaders who will be tasked with producing better results than our leaders have so far been able to achieve.

Kudos to Rep. Roskam for identifying the need to come up with a coherent strategy to unite the GOP. The current fracture between the leadership and the base is not going to disappear, especially if Boehner uses his last 30 days as Speaker to push through a clean CR as is rumored. (He did.) If the House replaces Boehner with McCarthy it will be viewed as the leadership ignoring the base once again. It is possible that McCarthy would acknowledge the desires of the base more than Boehner did, but it would be a long road to prove this and to gain the trust of the base.

We have entered into a dangerous time for the country with an expanded imperial presidency unfettered by the legislative branch and supported by the judicial branch. This president rules by executive order, regulations, and selective enforcing of the laws.

Congress has allowed this because under Pelosi and Reid they agreed with Obama’s agenda. The citizens expressed their strong disapproval by dismissing first Pelosi and then Reid by decisive victories in the House and the Senate. Those victories at the elections have never translated into victories in rolling back the president’s fundamental changes. This has led to extreme disappointment and anger amongst the base. The passage of the CRomnibus bill is a recent example of this outrage. Rep. Harris said we needed to just pass the CRomnibus so that we could focus on this year’s budget. We didn’t have time to fight over the previous budget, because we needed to look ahead. Fast forward. Now we are looking at another CR. Hmmm, we didn’t fight last time so that we could work on doing it right this time, so now let’s just pass another clean CR so we can focus on the next one?

We have been handed that line just a few too many times. They say we will hold the line on that debt ceiling; no, at the budget; no, back to the debt ceiling. The bait and switch doesn’t work once people realize that it is happening.

Congress under its present failed leadership has tried one too many times to blame everything on anything except themselves. Like a drug addict in rehab, they need to get clean, and face their inner demons. They were elected to serve their country, not to become rich, powerful men and women addicted to their status and in need of the next cash transfusion from their donors/masters.

The GOP leadership really cannot afford to kick this can down the road now. In the progressive movement, they are facing a ruthless, effective opposition that will stop at nothing to achieve total control of every aspect of our lives.

Housing and transportation zoning codes: Agenda 21 takes care of that.
Education: Common Core destroys that.
Family: Changes to marriage and social mores finishes that off.
Freedom of Religion: Reduced to a personal faith only to be expressed inside the church building, and only as long as they don’t get political.
Government medical care: We have you covered, but that doesn’t ensure access to care.

We are well on our way to a totalitarian state and the progressives will not stop until they get there or are decisively defeated, not just pushed back for an election cycle or two.

Now, GOP leadership, do I have your attention? Your base understands and is extremely motivated to stop the fundamental transformation that is taking place in this country. We are no longer deceived by your show votes.

I suggest that instead of sneering at your base, the leadership of the GOP should take a brief time to reflect on the course of the nation and come to a plan of action that will encourage its base and present the proper explanations which can be ably defended by many of the presidential candidates as to why we need to defund Planned Parenthood, stop the flood of immigrants that we are not assimilating, and change our foreign policies, particularly our policy towards Iran.

Carly Fiorina is not backing down on the evil that is Planned Parenthood as revealed by the Center for Medical Progress’s videos. Congress should join her by forcing a vote on defunding PP and making the President veto it. Show the videos so that the President and his followers are exposed for supporting selling butchered baby organs.

Ted Cruz is standing alone on the floor of the Senate calling out the failed leadership on their collusion in funding Planned Parenthood and the Iran deal.

Ben Carson is not retreating from his statements about a Muslim president.

Many of our candidates are showing themselves to be fearless in presenting their ideas. This should be a lesson to our present failed leadership.

Do not go onto the battlefield without a strategy to win. Once you start, stand by your principles, and go for victory.

The only flaw in this advice is that it assumes that our current leadership is operating on principles when it sadly seems that they are doing the bidding of the highest donors. This is the most plausible theory to explain why the GOP keeps siding with the progressive agenda when it coalesces around the goals of crony capitalism rather than their base. If so, they need to reform or find themselves cast aside like Boehner. Revolutions can pick up momentum. The outsiders may just lead the base to true victory.