On Planned Parenthood, Anyone Remember Anita Dunn or Ann Richards?

Posted on July 30, 2015July 30, 2015 by Denise Simon

Maybe we should be checking Hillary’s emails for several other items.

Ann Richards was the 45th Governor of Texas and the one who famously said at the 1988 Democratic Convention ” Poor George, he cant help it, he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

Well, Ann has a daughter, Cecile Richards who is the president of Planned Parenthood, which at the very moment I type this, the Planned Parenthood website is down for maintenance. Riiiiiight.

There is more:

A crisis management company called SKDKnickerbocker has been hired to begin the Planned Parenthood damage control mission. The managing director of SKDKnickerbocker is none other than Anita Dunn, of Mao Tse Tung fame.

Yes, there is more. Anita Dunn is married to Robert Bauer, Obama’s inside and personal White House lawyer.

So, for a summary fro Politico, but Politico DID leave out a few details, yet they are provided above. But hat-tip to Politico, they did include a few others.

Clinton’s Planned Parenthood ties run deep

The fetal-tissue scandal presents questions and opportunities for the Democratic front-runner.

Hillary Clinton is friends with Planned Parenthood’s president and took a rare pause from her duties as secretary of state to keynote a Planned Parenthood gala, while her family foundation has worked with the group to promote birth control.

So when Planned Parenthood found itself in the middle of a major scandal last week when anti-abortion activists released graphic undercover videos of executives discussing the alleged sale of aborted fetal tissue, Clinton’s support for the group was not so much a choice as a foregone conclusion — Planned Parenthood’s problem was Clinton’s problem, too.

Story Continued Below

“I have seen pictures from them and obviously find them disturbing,” Clinton said in an interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader Tuesday, distancing herself from the content in the videos. But she was quick to reiterate her support for Planned Parenthood as an organization, saying, “Planned Parenthood for more than a century has done a lot of really good work for women: cancer screenings, family planning, all kinds of health services.”

And while Republicans seized on the scandal to attack Clinton — demanding that she return the group’s campaign contributions — some Democrats were quick to see some silver linings. A full-throated defense of Planned Parenthood helps shore up Clinton’s support among wavering liberals, while the GOP’s efforts to defund the family-planning group allow Clinton to make the case that her election would be a bulwark against efforts to roll back women’s rights.

“The first job is to become the nominee, and the best route is to speak to the ideological base,” explained Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf. “Their basic language is protecting choice and that is what Planned Parenthood symbolizes. Those who don’t agree are likely not voting for her anyway, and if she is the Democratic Party nominee, will not be voting for her in the fall of 2016.”

Indeed, when the scandal began to spread last week, Clinton was quick to put it in the context of years of attacks on an organization synonymous with support for abortion rights.

Planned Parenthood has been “the object of such a concerted attack for so many years, and it’s really an attack against a woman’s right to choose, to make the most personal difficult decisions that any woman would face,” Clinton said at a campaign appearance in South Carolina.

But Clinton’s relationship with Planned Parenthood goes beyond a shared belief in a woman’s right to choose. The group is interwoven with a network of women’s organizations that are among her strongest backers, and Planned Parenthood leaders and activists are among her personal friends, including President Cecile Richards.

When Clinton announced her candidacy for President last April, Richards tweeted that “there has never been a presidential candidate with as strong a commitment to women’s health & rights” and called the moment #Historic. The Planned Parenthood Action Fund noted in a news release at the time that Clinton had a 100 percent congressional scorecard every year she served in the Senate, during which the fund tracked 16 votes.

In an added sign of bonhomie between Clinton and the top Planned Parenthood executive, Richards’ daughter, former Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Lily Adams, signed up last spring with the Clinton campaign as Iowa press secretary, a high-profile portfolio for a campaign eager to shore up support in the important early state that rejected Clinton in 2008.

Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the group’s federal political action committee, gave $8,000 to Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, and $1,837 to her presidential committee in the 2008 cycle, records show. Many of Planned Parenthood’s PAC biggest donors are also longtime Clinton donors, some of whom supported the Ready For Hillary PAC as early as 2013, and have maxed out with $2,700 contributions to her primary campaign this year.

Longtime Democratic donor and proponent of women candidates Barbara Lee, for example, was one of the top 20 Planned Parenthood Action Committee donors in the 2012 cycle. She also donated $7,000 to Ready For Hillary in 2013. And other major Planned Parenthood donors like Susan Mandel, Democratic bundler Naomi Aberly and major Democratic donor Amber Mostyn, have all maxed-out for Clinton with $2,700 donations.

Clinton’s relationship with Planned Parenthood also extends to the Clinton Global Initiative. For the past two years Planned Parenthood has been a member of CGI and in 2012 committed to train “youth peer providers” in Latin America, Africa and the U.S. on ways to promote birth control.

Additionally, Planned Parenthood will sponsor two global youth fellowship programs and create a national youth organizing strategy to help push for increased investment in access to reproductive health care, according to CGI’s website. Planned Parenthood does not contribute money to CGI, according to sources familiar with the organizations.

Clinton and Planned Parenthood also share consultants and allies.

Planned Parenthood has enlisted Democratic consultant SKDKnickerbocker’s Hilary Rosen, another close Clinton ally, to help with the current public relations crisis. And Planned Parenthood Action Fund hired Democratic pollster Geoff Garin — who is also the pollster on the Clinton super PAC Priorities USA and served as a chief strategist of Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign — to conduct a poll about attitudes toward the organization.

Emily’s List, which has been leading the movement to stand with Planned Parenthood, raising money off the most recent defunding threats while collecting 22,000 signatures from its members standing with Planned Parenthood, is a major backer of Clinton’s campaign. It’s president, Stephanie Schriock, was a short-lister for Clinton’s campaign manager.

“Planned Parenthood is something that women and families rely on all over the country,” said Emily’s List spokeswoman Jess McIntosh. “Hillary has such a strong record of understanding the realities of women that of course she understands that, too.”

Some of Clinton’s Republican rivals are eager to tar her with the most recent scandal.

“Hillary Clinton in particular should be made to answer if she is proud to have received such enthusiastic support from Planned Parenthood while they are under investigation for multiple felonies,” Sen. Ted Cruz told POLITICO Wednesday in the Capitol. “I think Hillary Clinton should be made to answer if she supports an organization that buys and sells the body parts of unborn children in direct violation of federal law. [She] ought to be asked: Do you share those values? Does that reflect the core values of your campaign?”

At an anti-abortion rally earlier in the week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), another 2016 GOP hopeful, called on Clinton to refund Planned Parenthood contributions.

“Hillary Clinton’s hands are stained by accepting this money,” Paul said. “She needs to immediately return every red cent she has received from Planned Parenthood employees.”

Cruz and Paul’s attacks on Clinton may be aimed at rallying support among the Republican base, but they are also what many Democratic strategists said they are hoping for — that Republicans will get mired in fighting Clinton on social issues, rather than fiscal or economic issues.

“Both Democrats and independents overwhelmingly support continued support for Planned Parenthood, and women voters in particular look at Planned Parenthood as a trusted source of health care,” said Garin, who conducted a recent poll on the issue for Planned Parenthood Action Fund. “In political terms, it’s very clear that Hillary Clinton is on the right side of public opinion. The Republicans who have a mania against Planned Parenthood are digging a deep hole for themselves with general election voters.”

A spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood did not respond to requests for comment. <— Maybe they are too busy working on their broken/downed website.

Planned Parenthood, ‘Call it Research, Not Business’

Posted on July 30, 2015July 30, 2015 by Denise Simon

While Texas Governor, Greg Abbott has issued 3 subpoenas to abortion facilities in his home state, the Attorney General for California, Kamala Harris has sought a restraining order to keep further videos from being released.

The depravity and evil has been revealed that festers inside Planned Parenthood.

FNC: Call it ‘research,’ not ‘business,’ Planned Parenthood doc says in latest sting video

A Colorado Planned Parenthood doctor stresses calling the harvesting of fetal tissue “research” and not “business” — and casually pokes around in a petri dish of aborted remains as a colleague exclaims, “Another boy!” — in the latest video released Thursday by an activist group whose hidden camera stings have imperiled the embattled nonprofit’s taxpayer funding.

The video’s release by the Center for Medical Progress comes a day after CMP was issued a restraining order preventing it from issuing any new footage of a group that worked with Planned Parenthood, StemExpress. But Thursday’s material focuses almost entirely on a woman identified as Dr. Savita Ginde, the vice president and medical director of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.

“A lot of times, especially with the second [trimester fetuses], we won’t even put water, because it’s so big you can put your hand in there and pick out the parts.”

– Dr. Savita Ginde

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING: Click here to see the latest Planned Parenthood video

Ginde is shown for the majority of the edited video having a discussion about whether to frame tissue procurement as research or business with the undercover activists, whom she believes to be from a procurement company. It is against federal law to sell fetal body parts for profit.

“Putting it under the research gives us a little bit of a, a little sort of overhang over the whole thing,” Ginde said. “Yeah, and in public I think it makes a lot more sense for it to be in the research vein than I’d say the business vein.”

Ginde says in the video that it’s important for all Planned Parenthood affiliates to be on the same page about the issue, particularly those affiliates who may be in states where prevailing public opinion goes against abortion.

“Because if you have someone in a really anti-state that’s going to be doing this for you, they’re probably going to get caught,” she said.

During the conversation, Ginde is asked if she ever gets intact specimens.

“Sometimes, if we get, if someone delivers before we get to see them for a procedure, then we are intact,” she said.

CMP alleges that, since this particular Planned Parenthood affiliate does not use feticides in its second-trimester procedures, any intact deliveries prior to an abortion “are potentially born-alive infants under federal law.”

Near the end of the more than 11-minute video, Ginde digs through the remains of an 11-week-old fetus in a petri dish, showing different body parts to the undercover activist.

At one point, a sound identified as a skull cracking is heard. Later, someone in the room asks questions such as “Do they want brain?” and “Do people do stuff with eyeballs?” The activist laments that using water in the petri dish has caused some of the tissue to come apart.

“Well you know, a lot of times, especially with the second [trimester fetuses], we won’t even put water, because it’s so big you can put your hand in there and pick out the parts,” Ginde says. “So I don’t think it would be as war-torn.”

As Ginde looks over the fetal tissue she says, “It’s a baby.”

The last quote in the video comes from a medical assistant, joyfully proclaiming “And another boy!” when she realizes the sex of the fetus they are dissecting.

The video is the fourth to be released by CMP. Like the first three, it contains undercover video of Planned Parenthood officials and associates.

Previous videos show Dr. Mary Gatter, a Planned Parenthood medical director in Southern California, meeting with people posing as buyers of fetal specimens. The conversation focuses on how much money the buyers should pay, although Planned Parenthood insists that it only sought to cover its expenses. The videos have brought investigations of Planned Parenthood’s policies on aborted fetuses by three Republican-led congressional committees and three states.

Federal law prohibits the commercial sale of fetal tissue, but it allows the not-for-profit donation of tissue if the women who underwent abortions give their consent. Planned Parenthood says the payments discussed in the videos pertain to reimbursement for the costs of procuring the tissue — which is legal.

Video #3 Planned Parenthood, Incentive for More Money

Posted on July 28, 2015July 28, 2015 by Denise Simon

Technician details harvesting fetal parts for Planned Parenthood in latest video

FNC: A technician who said she worked for a company that partnered with Planned Parenthood to harvest fetal tissue said there’s “incentive to try and get the hard stuff ‘cause you’re going to get more money,” in the latest undercover video targeting Planned Parenthood.

“For whatever we could procure, they would get a certain percentage,” said Holly O’Donnell, identified as an ex-procurement technician for StemExpress, LLC. “The main nurse was always trying to make sure we got our specimens. No one else really cared, but the main nurse did because she knew that Planned Parenthood was getting compensated.”

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING: Click to see latest undercover Planned Parenthood video

The new, graphic video from the Center for Medical Progress appears to show technicians using tweezers to pick through aborted fetal tissue for baby parts. After one person in the video picks out a pair of intact kidneys someone off-camera laughs and says, “Five stars!”

O’Donnell said she fainted the first time she was part of this process and was told by someone in the room, “some of us don’t ever get over it.”

“If you can somehow procure a brain or a heart you’re going to get more money than just Chorionic villi or umbilical cord.”

– Holly O’Donnell

O’Donnell said she worked for six months identifying pregnant women at Planned Parenthood who met the standards for fetal tissue orders and then helped to harvest fetal body parts after abortions at Planned Parenthood facilities.

StemExpress, based in Placerville, Calif., “supplies human blood, tissue products, primary cells and other clinical specimens to biomedical researchers around the world,” according to its website.

O’Donnell describes the company a different way.

“StemExpress is a company that hires procurement techs to draw blood and dissect dead fetuses and sell the parts to researchers,” she said. “They’ve partnered with Planned Parenthood and they get part of the money because we pay them to use their facilities. And they get paid from it. They do get some kind of benefit.”

Planned Parenthood has denied selling fetal tissue for a profit, which is against federal law.

“If you can somehow procure a brain or a heart you’re going to get more money than just Chorionic villi or umbilical cord,” O’Donnell said.

The video is the third to be released by the Center for Medical Progress. Like the first two, it contains undercover video of Planned Parenthood officials and associates, but is heavily reliant on an interview with O’Donnell.

The Senate Circus and Donald Trump Advances

Posted on July 27, 2015July 27, 2015 by Denise Simon

It was tantamount that Republicans took control of the Senate to get rid of Harry Reid

..check…we made that happen.

It was imperative that we get rid of the Export-Import Bank

…check we did that too.

Given the recent investigative videos on Planned Parenthood, we were well on the way to do that too….until….Mitch McConnell and several other republican senators voted for their own elitist’s agenda and dismissed ours.

Trump is advancing because he is saying what we need to have said without using measured words. So, is anyone in the Senate or any other republican candidates scratching their heads yet on this ‘in-your-face- Trump-phenomenon? Simply put, Americans cannot tolerate cheating and lying much less obstruction. Below, Daniel Horowitz spells it out.

Yesterday’s Circus in the Senate is Exactly Why Trump is Surging

By: Daniel Horowitz | July 27th, 2015

When Donald Trump uttered the words “I like people who weren’t captured” in response to a question about Sen. John McCain’s service in Vietnam, there was a universal sentiment among both admirers and detractors that he would sink like a rock in the polls. His meteoric rise was destined for a swift collapse. Except – that collapse never occurred. Why not?

Trump Maintains his Lead in the Polls

According to a new CNN-ORC International poll, which was conducted a week after Trump’s major gaffe, Trump is leading the field nationally with 18% of the vote, followed by Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. As Breitbart observes, Cruz is now beginning to surpass Rubio for 4^th place. In addition, a new NBC News/Marist poll shows Trump with a commanding lead in New Hampshire, leading his closest rival 21%-14%.

When was the last time a Republican survived such a widely circulated career-ending gaffe?

In order to understand this unprecedented stubbornness of the GOP base in coalescing around a protest vote like Trump, look no further than the circus on display in the GOP-led Senate this past Sunday.

The Sunday Massacre in the Senate

What was the emergency impetus for this rare Sunday session in middle of the summer? Were the senators meeting to overturn Obama’s Iran alliance? Were they preparing a package of bills to “comprehensively” address the imminent problem of criminal illegal aliens? Were they holding a crisis session over the Supreme Court’s coup against our Constitution and the impending disaster of anti-religious bigotry unfolding in a number of states? Were they concocting a response to the growing homegrown Islamic terror attacks on our soil? Did they finally decide that our military bases, which have become prime targets for terror attacks, should be populated by armed soldiers instead of unarmed soldiers?

Nope – none of the above. They met on Sunday to renew the corporate welfare Export-Import Bank, the one government agency conservatives have successfully closed down for the first time in years. They met to rush through a massive $300 billion highway bill, in which McConnell blocked all amendments addressing some of the aforementioned issues so that the amendment process can be reserved for the crony Export-Import Bank.

The Senate voted 67-26 to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank and attach it to the “must-pass” highway bill. This amendment was supported by 24 Republicans. Accordingly, McConnell has now followed through with his private commitment to attach Ex-Im to the highway bill, in contravention to what he told GOP members privately. Yet, instead of exhibiting outrage over McConnell’s lie, Sens. Hatch, Alexander, and Cornyn – three allies of McConnell – took to the Senate floor to condemn Cruz for calling him a liar. If only they cared as much about our Constitution and the existential national security and sovereignty threats as they did “Senate decorum.”

Yes to Corporate Welfare, No to Conservative Priorities

Next, Cruz attempted to force a vote on an amendment prohibiting the lifting of sanctions on Iran until they recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and release the four U.S. hostages. Although his amendment was ruled out of order, any senator can force a vote overruling the decision of the chair if 10 other senators (for a total of one-fifth of the 51 quorum) join to “second” the request for a vote. Yet, for the first time in recent memory, GOP senators refused to second the motion, thereby saving Democrats, once again, from having to vote on Iran and Israel. McConnell and Corker had already blocked such amendments in May when they originally passed the unconstitutional Corker-Cardin Iran bill.

John Cornyn had the nerve to argue Sunday that the Corker-Cardin process has already granted the Senate sufficient oversight over the Iran deal and that there was no need for Cruz’s amendment. Evidently, he’s not up on the news that Obama has already abrogated that process.

Finally, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) attempted to offer an amendment to defund Planned Parenthood. Once again, he was rebuffed by the chair and he could not muster even 10 colleagues to force a vote on defunding Planned Parenthood.

Hence, corporate welfare is in; fighting Iran and Planned Parenthood is out. Is this what the American people thought they were getting when they voted for a GOP Senate last November?

The American people, and the GOP base in particular, are tired of liars. They are tired of Obama fundamentally transforming every value, principle, and tradition of this country before their very eyes while the Republican majority they elected stands by idly and focuses on liberal, petty, or trivial priorities – or downright helps Obama implement his policies.

This is exactly why the polls are continuing to show strong support for Trump. He is a protest vote through which voters are declaring their independence from the failed and corrupt Republican Party.

Over the weekend, Ted Cruz has shown a willingness to fight this corrupt political cartel like nobody else in recent history. Obviously, Trump’s persona as a pop culture figure has overshadowed Cruz’s work in the Senate, especially given the “inside baseball” nature of this fight. But if he continues to bring this sort of fighting spirit to the campaign trail, he will be well positioned to reap the windfall from the wave Trump has created if and when The Donald implodes. Unfortunately, that cannot be said of most of the other contenders running in the field.

Judge Smacks DoJ on Illegal Detention Centers

Posted on July 25, 2015July 25, 2015 by Denise Simon

Detention centers are located in several states and in Texas, ICE just released hundreds of illegals as did Arizona. Detentions centers can only hold the immigrants for 60 days unless a court hears their case. Almost none of the illegals have their paperwork processed due to volume much less even appear in court.

For a map of ICE published detention centers, click here. Thousands upon thousands are immediately transferred out to contracted organizations mostly operating as religious organizations but that is actually a front operation.

From the ICE website:

ERO enforces the nation’s immigration laws in a fair and effective manner. It identifies and apprehends removable aliens, detains these individuals when necessary and removes illegal aliens from the United States.

ERO prioritizes the apprehension, arrest and removal of convicted criminals, those who pose a threat to national security, fugitives and recent border entrants. Individuals seeking asylum also work with ERO.

ERO transports removable aliens from point to point, manages aliens in custody or in an alternative to detention program, provides access to legal resources and representatives of advocacy groups and removes individuals from the United States who have been ordered to be deported.

Meanwhile, the DoJ and DHS know full well that the edict from the White House is itself illegal.

Associated Press, Los Angeles:

Judge: US violates agreement in detention of immigrant kids

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Department of Justice’s current system of detaining children with their mothers after they’ve crossed the U.S.-Mexico border violates an 18-year-old court settlement.

The decision Friday by U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in California is a victory for the immigrant rights lawyers who brought the case, but its immediate implications for detainees were not yet clear. The ruling upholds a tentative decision Gee made in April, and comes a week after the two sides told her that they failed to reach a new settlement agreement as she’d asked for.

The 1997 settlement at issue bars immigrant children from being held in unlicensed, secure facilities. Gee found that settlement covered all children in the custody of federal immigration officials, even those being held with a parent.

Peter Schey, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and one of the attorneys who brought the suit, said federal officials “know they’re in violation of the law.”

“They are holding children in unsafe facilities, it’s that simple,” Schey said in an email to The Associated Press. “It’s intolerable, it’s in humane, and it needs to end, and end sooner rather than later.”

Justice Department attorneys did not immediately reply to late-night messages seeking comment on the ruling.

The new lawsuit was brought on by new major detention centers for women and children in Texas that are overseen by the U.S. government but are managed by private prison operators. Together they have recently held more than 2,000 women and children between them after a surge of tens of thousands of immigrants from Central America, most of them mothers with children, many of whom claimed they were fleeing gang and domestic violence back home.

The Justice Department had argued it was necessary to modify the settlement and use detention to try to deter more immigrants from coming to the border after last year’s surge and it was an important way to keep families together while their immigration cases were being reviewed, but the judge rejected that argument in Friday’s decision.

Gee said the Department of Justice has 90 days to show cause why it should not change its policies in according with her ruling.

But since the tentative ruling in April, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has vowed to make the facilities more child-friendly and provide better oversight.