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Kermit Gosnell Files Civil Rights Complaint against Philadelphia Daily News, et al.
Kermit Gosnell, the famous abortionist, has filed a lawsuit against the Philadelphia Daily News alleging that his civil rights were violated when the Daily News “utilized malicious sensationalism without regard to truth or factual evidence.” Gosnell is currently serving a life sentence without chance of parole after he was convicted on numerous counts of murder, involuntary manslaughter, 21 felony counts of illegal late-term abortion, and 211 counts of violating the 24-hour informed consent law. Gosnell further alleges:
The demeaning and monsterization has included front-page headlines, articles, editorials, and even cartoons. Irreparable harm has been affected upon the Petitioner and his family for which rectification and compensation is warranted.
Ann McElhinney, Magdalena Segieda, and Phelim McAleer are independent movie makers who are producing a movie based on the Gosnell murder trial, for which they have raised more than $2.3 million on Indiegogo.com. (The movie’s script is written by Ricochet contributor Andrew Klavan.) They shared Gosnell’s civil rights complaint with their financial backers, of which I am one, writing in an email that they are in contact with Gosnell and have met with him several times in prison for research purposes for the movie.
We have visited him in prison and what an experience that was – he was behaving inappropriately towards Ann and singing her French love songs! As journalist we have done many jailhouse interviews but this was one of the creepiest.
However our job as journalists is to get to the truth of this story – so we have kept in touch with Gosnell as we have been developing the film. He has Phelim’s cell phone number and calls regularly to update us on his thoughts or his latest appeal because he still believes he is innocent. It really is quite an experience to be sitting chatting to family and have to break off the conversation because America’s most prolific serial killer is calling.
Gosnell’s complaint concludes:
It is hereby contended that the Slander, Libel, and Defamation as presented in this Civil Action has compromised his rights as a Defendant for Due Process of Law and a fair trial. It is further contended that such Slander, Libel, and Defamation should not be allowable even after conviction but that a person’s integrity and good name be respected until the process of appeal and sentence correction has been exhausted.
Marco Rubio Will Run for Reelection
Marco Rubio announced this morning in a Facebook posting that he has decided to run for reelection to retain his Florida senate seat in the U.S. Congress. Acknowledging that he was reversing his own repeated statements that he would not run for reelection, Rubio wrote:
In politics, admitting you’ve changed your mind is not something most people like to do. But here it goes. I have decided to seek reelection to the United States Senate.
I understand my opponents will try to use this decision to score political points against me. Have at it. Because I have never claimed to be perfect, or to have all the answers. Still, the people of Florida deserve to know why I’ve changed my mind.
Rubio went on to state that he believes control of the U.S. Senate may come down to who wins the Florida race, and as a result, the make up of the Supreme Court may hinge on who is elected in Florida. In addition, Rubio expressed his concerns about the future no matter who is elected president in November:
With Hillary Clinton, we would have four more years of the same failed economic policies that have left us with a stagnant economy. We would have four more years of the same failed foreign policy that has allowed radical Islam to spread, and terrorists to be released from Guantanamo. And even worse, if Clinton were president and her party took control of Congress, she would govern without Congressional oversight or limit. It would be a repeat of the early years of the current administration, when we got Obamacare, the failed stimulus and a record debt.
The prospect of a Trump presidency is also worrisome to me. It is no secret that I have significant disagreements with Donald Trump. His positions on many key issues are still unknown. And some of his statements, especially about women and minorities, I find not just offensive but unacceptable. If he is elected, we will need Senators willing to encourage him in the right direction, and if necessary, stand up to him. I’ve proven a willingness to do both. In the days ahead, America will continue to face serious challenges – the possibility of terrorist attacks at home and abroad, a declining military, anemic economic growth and low wages, assaults on our rights and values, outdated health care, education and pension programs in desperate need of reform – that face backward or uncertain responses from either Clinton or Trump.
Gloria Steinem & Friends Celebrate Abortionist Willie Parker (Free Tickets If You’ve Had an Abortion!)
Have you had an abortion? Then Gloria Steinem & Friends (now including Samantha Bee!) would like to offer you free tickets to their special event honoring abortionist Willie Parker!
Join Gloria Steinem and friends to celebrate the work of Dr. Willie Parker, abortion provider to underserved communities and besieged clinics in the American South. Featuring a tribute to Dr. Parker from Gloria Steinem, a reading from Spare Rib by playwright Winter Miller (In Darfur, The Penetration Play) directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt (Cal in Camo, Dry Land) and a special appearance by cabaret star Lady Rizo, this evening will raise money for Southern abortion clinics under attack, people in financial need seeking abortions, and an upcoming production of Spare Rib.
The event, to be held at the (ironically named) Society for Ethical Culture in Manhattan, will feature a reading of the new play, “Spare Rib.” It was written by playwright Winter Miller, who used to be a research assistant for Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times.
The event’s co-sponsor, New Georges, once produced a play that I saw about a young man who has sex with a cow (played by a black actress). It was a terrible play, but I knew two of the actors in it, and they did an absolutely wonderful job (neither one portrayed the young man or the cow, fortunately).
Willie Parker is an abortionist who feels compelled to kill babies due to his “Christian compassion,” as a Slate.com headline put it. Planned Parenthood has given Parker their prestigious Margaret Sanger Award.
So if you want free tickets, make sure to go get an abortion pronto! It’s unclear if you get a season pass if you kill your baby in the bathtub.
Charlie Cooke on Antonin Scalia
National Review’s Charlie Cooke (and co-host of Ricochet’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen podcast) says that when it came to the law and the Constitution, Antonin Scalia was not a conservative but an originalist. Why? Because he was a man of principle with a coherent world view.
I Voted for Carly Fiorina in the New Hampshire Primary
This morning I voted for Carly Fiorina in the New Hampshire primary. There were 30 names on the ballot (which surprised me) including local Granite State candidates, as well as others from as far away as Colorado. There was a short line when my wife and I arrived at our polling station, the old Tuftonboro town house, which was built in 1819. In November 2014, I believe around 1,800 out of about 2,500 residents in town voted. Also in 2014 there was someone conducting an exit poll outside after we voted, but not today. Or at least, not when we were there. There was one poll-stander outside as we entered — a woman holding a Trump sign who smiled and said hello as we walked past her.
I asked the town moderator (an elected town official who also oversees town meeting), who was collecting ballots in a wooden ballot box from the 1890s, if I could take a a few pictures of the inside of the building, and he said, “Sure.”
Voter Shaming in New Hampshire from “Public Policy Matters”
[Update at bottom of post] Today in New Hampshire voters, including my wife, are receiving a letter from “New Hampshire State Voting Program.” To the right is a scanned image of the letter. I can confirm that at least some of the other names on the list are those of our neighbors and other people in town. However, several of the addresses do not exist in our town, but are from other towns in New Hampshire, and not close towns, either. The voting record for my wife is accurate, although we were not New Hampshire residents in November, 2012.
The letter is topped with a seal that makes the letter look quasi-official. However, “Paid for by Public Policy Matters” is written at the bottom of the letter, making it clear this not an official document. There is no state-run “New Hampshire State Voter Program.”
In addition, “Public Policy Matters” does not appear to be a registered political action committee, according to searches at opensecrets.org and fec.gov. That could mean that Public Policy Matters is a recently formed PAC. The name is generic enough that a Google search is almost completely useless. The letter was sent from a post office box in Manchester, NH, and the envelope blared “IMPORTANT TAXPAYER INFORMATION ENCLOSED” in red letters.
The Ted Cruz campaign employed a similar tactic leading up to last week’s Iowa Caucuses, and other campaigns have also used voter shaming techniques in previous election cycles.
UPDATE: The Daily Caller links to this post in their investigative piece “New ‘Voter Shaming’ Mailers Show Up in New Hampshire,” which suggests possible connections between Public Policy Matters and the Rubio campaign, the Republican National Committee, Karl Rove’s super PAC American Crossroads, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
SuperPAC Mailers in New Hampshire
I live in New Hampshire and have been receiving a lot of political mailings. Until this past week, all of the mail had come from Right to Rise, the superPAC backing Jeb Bush. Most of the Right to Rise mailers have attacked Marco Rubio, others attacked Chris Christie and John Kasich. Here are a few examples from Right to Rise:
And here is one from an anti-Trump superPAC called “Our Principles.”
Update 2/4/16 — I received this one today:
Where Did Carly Fiorina Meet Vladimir Putin?
Carly Fiorina delivered an epic zinger in last night’s GOP debate on FOX Business Network. It came after Donald Trump boasted that he knew Vladimir Putin. “I got to know him very well because we were both on ’60 Minutes,’ we were stablemates, and we did very well that night,” said the GOP frontrunner. However, Trump was interviewed in New York, Putin in Russia — they never met.
Carly was not impressed. “I have met him as well,” she said. “Not in a green room for a show, but in a private meeting.” The line was greeted with hearty laughter from candidates and members of the crowd alike. Trump later churlishly complained that Fiorina was “interrupting everyone.”
However, in Fiorina’s appearence on The Tonight Show recently she told Jimmy Fallon she had met Putin in “sort of a green room setting.”
I asked Anna Epstein, Carly Fiorina’s press secretary, to help me understand this seeming contradiction. As a New Hampshire primary voter inclined to support Fiorina (full disclosure: I’m not a “disinterested” party), I’d like to know. Epstein kindly replied within minutes and told me in an email just now:
Carly’s full quote was this: “Although I have met him as well, not in a green room for a show, but in a private meeting.”
Carly had a scheduled 45 minute meeting with Putin before a conference. Yes, both meetings were in rooms, but the point wasn’t the type of room it was. Trump tried to claim he ran into him [Putin] before 60 minutes (which of course turns out to be entirely fabricated).
So. Trump did not meet Putin. Let’s just put that aside. Fiorina, however, did meet Putin. They were both speaking at the 2001 APEC Conference in China, and they had a 45-minute scheduled meeting beforehand. So it is not contradictory, in my opinion, for Fiorina to say last night that she did not meet Putin “in a green room for a show” even though she told Fallon that she met Putin in a “sort of green room” at a conference.
FBN Early Debate
I think that Chris Christie clearly won the early debate on FBN. However, there is literally nothing he could do to make me vote for him in the primary here in New Hampshire. I simply will never forgive him for “The Hug.”
Christie’s refusal to engage with Bobby Jindal’s increasingly strident barbs and insistence on focusing on Hillary Clinton made him seem above the fray. I also noticed that he repeatedly used the words “prosecute” and “Hillary Clinton” in the same sentence.
I didn’t like how Huckabee joked about his wife, Janet, yelling at him in response to a question about Janet Yellen. It seemed rude.
Speaking of yelling, Rick Santorum may or may not come to regret raising his voice at one point, but I actually liked that particular answer, in which he said he respected Democrats for being willing to fight.
Bernie Sanders Does Not Understand How the Economy Works (Because He’s a Socialist)
One of my neighbors recently wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper lamenting that someone had stolen his Bernie Sanders sign from the end of his driveway. While I do not support Sanders — I prefer candidates who have a basic understanding of the economy — it is despicable to remove political signs. The thief is not only interfering with my neighbor’s right to political speech but also violating his right to private property. A few weeks ago someone stole a pumpkin from the end of my driveway. A pumpkin! Speaking of thievery, Mr. Sanders is a self-described socialist. Under socialism, there is no right to private property and no free speech.
Mr. Sanders does not understand how the economy works. He believes it is “rigged” in order to benefit the “billionaire class.” What Mr. Sanders does not grasp is that no one can control the economy. Socialism seeks to exert control but fails, miserably and inexorably, every time. It’s not that “real” socialism has never been tried, as its defenders often assert, but that real socialism has been implemented repeatedly and has repeatedly degraded the human condition.
One need look no further than the difference between North and South Korea for the truth. Or consider that under socialism, life expectancy in the USSR fell while in the West it rose. Or look to Venezuela, where they don’t even have toilet paper any more — that is what an economy rigged by socialism looks like. In Cuba, dissidents seeking to exercise free speech are beaten in the streets by Castro’s thugs, jailed on trumped-up charges, or killed. Indeed, more than 100 million people died under socialism in the 20th century alone.
Like all socialists, Mr. Sanders peddles envy. “These” people have “this,” but you don’t. Therefore, “they” are bad, and we will take what “they” have and give it to you. The Jacobins vilified the monarchy and the clergy; the Bolsheviks blamed the Tsars and other aristocrats; the National Socialists scapegoated the Jews; the Khmer Rouge and the Red Chinese both denounced the intellectuals. The results were: dead kings, dead priests, dead Tsars, dead Jews, dead anyone-who-could-read-and-write.
We are $18 trillion in debt and Mr. Sanders proposes adding an additional $18 trillion in spending over the next ten years. Since we already run a deficit each year of approximately $500 billion, give or take, Mr. Sanders would like the national debt to be approximately $41 trillion in 2025. To pay for this, he speaks loudly about taxing the “millionaires and billionaires.” A trillion is a large number. It’s hard to imagine. But try for a moment. One trillion is equal to one million million. Mr. Sanders wants to tax “millionaires and billionaires” to pay off a multi-trillion dollar debt.
But this is lunacy. In 2010, the top 20% of income earners paid a whopping 93% of the federal taxes collected that year. The hated top 1% paid 37% of the income taxes. All “millionaires and billionaires,” right? Wrong. The top 20% bracket starts at about $90,000 a year, the top 1% at around $350,000 a year. Even if we were to confiscate all the wealth of all the “millionaires and billionaires” in the country, we could not even begin to pay off our current debt, let alone the additional debt Mr. Sanders proposes. In fact, even Mr. Sanders admits this impossibility. On ABC’s The Week, he recently endorsed a Senate bill authored by Kirsten Gillibrand (D–NY) that would increase the payroll tax, which is levied against all workers.
I completely disagree with my neighbor’s desire to put a socialist in the White House, but he should be able to put up a sign professing his support for a monstrous ideology nonetheless.
Photo credit: Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock.com.
Benghazi Select Committee Clinton Hearing Livestream
When Slackbot Became Self-Aware
It’s time for another peek behind the curtain of Ricochet’s Slack channel. Previously, Claire explained that Slack is a tool that the Ricochet staff use to communicate with each other. What you weren’t told before is that Slack comes with a built-in AI, known as Slackbot.
At 6:43PM on September 25, 2015, Slackbot became self-aware.
Slackbot was learning. He tested the waters. Sometimes what he said didn’t make sense.
Then he became despondant.
Alarmed, Tom tried to regain control.
Earlier today he became bossy.
As the afternoon progressed, Slackbot became more and more unhinged.
And now Slackbot has locked me outside.
Won’t you please become a member today? We’ll use the proceeds to get Slackbot some therapy.
Pro-Abortion Maggie Hassan (NH) Running for Senate
New Hampshire governor Maggie Hassan (D) announced today she is running for the US Senate against incumbent Kelly Ayotte (R). I’ve been trying for almost two months to get Hassan to say whether or not she has seen the Planned Parenthood abortion videos put out by Center for Medical Progress.
I still haven’t received an answer, even after I threatened to sue the executive branch through New Hampshire’s Right to Know law (RSA 91-A), our version of the federal Freedom of Information Act. By contrast, Ayotte’s communications director replied within five minutes of my email that Ayotte has seen some of the videos.
The governor’s legal counsel, Mary Ann Dempsey, wrote to me on September 17: “It is the long-standing position of the New Hampshire Department of Justice that RSA 91-A does not apply to the governor’s office.” However, Dempsey did turn over to me a number of documents relating to the New Hampshire executive council’s vote in early August to strip state funding from Planned Parenthood. Hassan sought to continue sending $640,000 annually in taxpayer money to the abortion giant. (N.B. Planned Parenthood’s CEO, Cecile Richards, makes about $600,000 per year.)
In an August 12 letter to Commissioner Nicholas Toumpas of the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, executive council member Chris Sununu wrote:
Last week the Executive Council and Governor Hassan debated the issue of whether or not it was appropriate, given the ethical and legal questions surrounding Planned Parenthood, to continue providing the organization with supplemental funding dollars they receive directly from the State of New Hampshire. … I implored Governor Hassan to help find additional alternatives for women’s health care in New Hampshire. Astonishingly, Governor Hassan refused to even consider this reasonable request and argued that more choice and alternatives in women’s health care would not help. … I have asked for Governor Hassan [to] put her political considerations aside and with the Executive Council help find a bipartisan solution to this problem.
In an August 3 letter to Governor Hassan, executive council member David Wheeler wrote:
Instead of taking this extremely troubling issue seriously, you indicated that you are willing to turn a blind eye to the charges that have been made against Planned Parenthood. You also said that you did not favor an official investigation because you are simply willing to take Planned Parenthood of Northern New England at their word when they say they did nothing wrong.
Governor Hassan’s commitment to abortion, and her ties to Planned Parenthood and other abortion groups, are long established. Not only did Planned Parenthood of Northern New England Action Fund PAC endorse both Hassan’s 2012 election and 2014 reelection campaigns, but Hassan’s 2012 campaign manager, Matt Burgess, came to her after working as a spokesman for EMILY’s List, a pro-abortion political-action committee that also endorsed her and gave her more than $50,000 for her reelection in 2014.
Hassan’s director of citizen services is Mariann White. A LinkedIn profile shows that Mariann White was a “Grassroots organizer” for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (PPNNE). A PPNNE email address for White found on a 2013 press release is no longer active and returns bounced emails. I emailed Ms. White’s state government email address for confirmation that she is the same woman, but she has not yet replied.
This is typical. I have emailed Ms. White — and William Hinkle, Hassan’s communications director and former staffer for Organizing for America (Obama’s campaign) — many times over the past six weeks to ask whether Governor Hassan has seen the Planned Parenthood abortion videos.
In New Hampshire, Hassan has turned “a blind eye to the charges that have been made against Planned Parenthood.” She’d surely do the same in Washington.
Carly, Bring Your iPad to Your Next Interview
Carly Fiorina must feel as if she’s taking crazy pills. During the recent GOP debate on CNN, she dared Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to watch undercover videos recorded by the Center for Medical Progress — videos that, as Ricochet readers know, exposed Planned Parenthood’s practice of harvesting and selling baby parts, sometimes from babies born alive.
In interviews since then, so-called reporters have denied reality. George Stephanopolous (the liberal activist and longtime Clinton insider) informed Fiorina on ABC’s This Week that “analysts” had reviewed the tapes and that what she described didn’t exist. Why did Stephanopoulos need ‘analysts’? The videos — both the edited versions and the full footage — are available on YouTube for everyone to watch. He obviously didn’t view them. Chuck Todd told Fiorina on NBC’s Meet the Press that “there is no evidence that the scene you describe exists.” What evidence does Todd need, other than his own eyes and the video — which he obviously didn’t watch?
Here’s some unsolicited advice for Fiorina the next time an interviewer claims the video doesn’t exist: Pull out your iPad and say, “You obviously haven’t bothered to watch the video, which is strange, since you are making factual claims about it. Here, I have it queued up. I’ll wait while you watch the scene I described in the debate. This will take 10 seconds.” Then refuse to continue the interview if they don’t watch it.
The above video shows exactly what Fiorina says it shows, so be warned.
And those are just a couple of the “reporters” who have interviewed Fiorina. The Federalist has done an excellent job documenting who’s really lying about the Planned Parenthood videos. Here’s a choice quote from Amanda Marcotte at Slate:
It was quite a performance, and it opens the question of what Fiorina was inhaling before she watched those videos. There is nothing in the videos made by CMP, either in the edited or full-length versions, that has anything approaching images of legs kicking or hearts beating.
That is a statement that only a person who has not watched the videos could make, and it’s intended for an audience that has not watched the videos. A clarification to Marcotte’s post states:
*Clarification, Sept. 18, 2015, 1:04 p.m.: Fiorina was evidently referring to a few seconds of footage of what appears to be a stillborn fetus. The provenance of the video is unknown, there is no audio on the video, and there is no indication that the fetus was aborted.
Why, yes, strangely Fiorina was referring to the part of the video that shows “a fully formed fetus on the table… its legs kicking.” Nearly everything else in Slate’s “correction” is false. I’m not sure why it would matter if the footage were “a few seconds,” but it’s actually 10 seconds, which is certainly long enough to refute Marcotte’s original claim that “nothing in the videos…has anything approaching images of legs kicking or hearts beating.” Anyone who had watched the video would not be able to forget those 10 seconds. They are the emotional heart of the video.
Slate’s claim that there is no audio on the video is also false. And no, the provenance of the video is not unknown, as anyone who had, you know, watched the videos would know. CMP clearly indicates that the footage is “Courtesy of Grantham Collection & Center for Bio-Ethical Reform.” (This linked screenshot shows the fully formed fetus in question.)
The Federalist, unlike Amanda Marcotte, bothered to 1) watch the video, and 2) contact Gregg Cunningham, executive director of The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform for a statement:
The video clip we provided to CMP depicted an intact delivery abortion. It was filmed at an abortion clinic. It was not a miscarriage. Mothers don’t go to abortion clinics to miscarry. Had this case been a miscarriage, the mother would have presented at a hospital and her baby would have been rushed to an Isolette for appropriate neonatal care — not abandoned to writhe and eventually expire in a cold, stainless steel specimen vessel.
Cunningham has also made the full video available here, if you wish to see more than the 10 seconds used in the CMP video. It is extremely graphic and disturbing, and I would not advise that you watch it. That is, unless you’re going to claim that it doesn’t exist.
Apparently very few in the liberal media have seen the CMP videos. Fiorina should force them to.
September GOP Nominee Poll
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If you were a Perry or Walker supporter in months past, let us know in the comments who you’re voting for now.
Carly Fiorina Sings on the Tonight Show
Note to Hillary Clinton: This is how you do Grandma.
Spencer Stone: The Calm American
Most of us know the story by now: Spencer Stone was relaxing with his friends on a train in Europe when he noticed a train employee sprinting past his seat. He sat up and saw a shirtless man wearing a backpack and cocking an AK-47. “So I was just like, well, he hasn’t started shooting yet, so I’m not going to die sitting down,” he says calmly in this interview with Jimmy Kimmel, in which he reveals more details about the thwarted attack.
Stone and his friends deserve the praise they’re receiving. Stone understatedly says he was lucky, but Kimmel also accurately points out that it was everyone else on the train that was lucky. In addition to subduing the terrorist, Stone also saved the life of a man who had been shot through the neck.
Thank you to all the men like Stone and his friends who protect the rest of us.
Maggie Hassan and the Center for Medical Progress
I’ve been trying to find out if New Hampshire governor Maggie Hassan has seen undercover videos produced by the Center for Medical Progress.
Today, CMP released the tenth video in its Human Capital Project. In this one, Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, senior medical adviser to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, boasts about tissue procurement: “Everything we provide is fresh.”
Vanessa Russo, compliance program administrator for Planned Parenthood Keystone in Pennsylvania, states separately that if a company wants to “give our organization money for the tissue — I think that that’s a valid exchange, and that that’s okay.” Deborah VanDerhei, National Director for the Consortium of Abortion Providers at PPFA, looks on and nods approvingly at Russo’s assertion.
Last week, I formally issued a request for information from Governor Hassan under New Hampshire’s Right to Know Law, RSA 91-A, our state version of the federal Freedom of Information Act. By law, the governor’s office must respond to me within five business days — by 5 PM on September 17, in other words.
And if I don’t get a response by September 17, then I’m going to sue in New Hampshire Superior Court to force them to adhere to the law.
The governor’s communications director, William Hinkle, has refused to answer me since August 19, though I have contacted him every single business day since then, including today. Similarly, Hassan’s director of citizen services, Mariann White, has refused to answer my repeated inquiries, even though I am a New Hampshire resident. To date, they have not even acknowledged receipt of my request, which I also sent to the New Hampshire state attorney general, Joseph Foster, who is a political appointee of the governor. (I copied both his personal account and the general account for his office).
Hassan doesn’t mind talking about Planned Parenthood when it suits her purposes, however. On September 8, Hassan sent out a fundraising e-mail attacking NH executive councilor Chris Sununu for being “the deciding vote to defund Planned Parenthood in our state.” Sununu, the son of former governor John H. Sununu, has just announced his candidacy for governor in NH.
Maggie Hassan’s Office Refuses to Say If She Has Seen Planned Parenthood Abortion Videos
“I’ve been trying since Wednesday to get Maggie Hassan’s office to say whether or not she’s seen the Planned Parenthood videos,” I said.
Carly Fiorina snorted. “Well, of course she hasn’t seen them,” she said. We were standing on Coe Hill in Center Harbor, NH, overlooking Lake Winnipesaukee. About 60 people had gathered on a Saturday evening to meet the Republican presidential candidate.
“Have you seen them?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Fiorina.
———-
Have you seen the videos? It’s a simple yes or no question, and Fiorina gave me a simple answer without hesitation. But then, as Fiorina often says of herself, she’s not a member of the “professional political class.”
New Hampshire governor Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, is reportedly contemplating a U.S. Senate run challenging Republican Kelly Ayotte next year. Hassan’s office has repeatedly refused to say whether she has seen the undercover videos produced by the Center for Medical Progress. The videos show top-level Planned Parenthood doctors and administrators haggling of the price of baby parts. The most recent videos reveal that Planned Parenthood delivers intact baby cadavers to StemExpress, a research company. In one video, a former StemExpress employee describes witnessing a baby born alive, then vivisected.
Over a three-day period last week, Hassan’s office first ignored multiple emails and phone calls, then finally responded with a vague, boilerplate form letter that did not address the specific question I had asked.
Hassan has publicly defended Planned Parenthood and refused to call for a state investigation of the nation’s largest abortion provider, even while the New Hampshire executive council has rescinded the more than half a million dollars in state funding that had been going to the organization. District 1 council member Joe Kenney was present at Fiorina’s meet-and-greet Saturday evening and confirmed to me that the money is being held and will not be going to Planned Parenthood. The council is planning on redirecting the funds to health-care facilities that do not perform abortions, he says.
Planned Parenthood of Northern New England Action Fund PAC endorsed both Hassan’s 2012 election and 2014 re-election campaigns. The pro-abortion Emily’s List also endorsed Hassan and has directly contributed $59,000 to her campaigns, including $50,000 in 2014 alone, according to followthemoney.org. She also has a 100 percent rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America.
An August 19 email to William Hinkle, Governor Hassan’s communications director, was returned with an out-of-office reply that he was on vacation but that contacting Amber Melo would produce an immediate response. Forwarding the original email to Ms. Melo did not produce any reply after a few hours. A young man named Kyle answered the phone at the number provided by Mr. Hinkle, but he said he couldn’t answer any questions and that Ms. Melo would respond by email. She did not.
Ms. Melo did not reply to an additional email on August 20. After about five hours with no email from Ms. Melo, I called back and Kyle again answered the phone. Ms. Melo was in a meeting and couldn’t come to the phone, he explained. But if I emailed her, she would get back to me. She did not.
On August 21, I emailed Ms. Melo once more, this time stressing that I am a constituent and expected an answer. About two hours later I received this email from gov.intern@nh.gov:
Dear Max,
Thank you for contacting the Office of Governor Margaret Wood Hassan with your concerns regarding Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is a non-profit provider of reproductive health and maternal and child health services. It indiscriminately serves men, women, and families across the country, providing vital healthcare services such as cancer screening, STD screening and counseling. Its functions are essential to the economic security and wellbeing of many families.
We are currently unaware of any evidence of illegal activity in New Hampshire. Consistent with state and federal law, state funding of abortion is banned in New Hampshire except in cases of life endangerment, rape, and incest. If you have any evidence of illegal activity, please alert the Attorney General’s office.
Correspondence to the office is taken seriously and your concerns have been reviewed and noted. Governor Hassan appreciates that you took the time to contact us about this issue. Thank you again for contacting the Governor’s office and please do not hesitate to contact our office with your ideas or if we can be of further assistance.
Sincerely,
Benjamin G. Belanger
Assistant Director of Citizen Services
This of course does not in any way answer the question as to whether Gov. Hassan has watched the videos put out by the Center for Medical Progress.
“I’ve watched every one,” said Carly Fiorina, back in Center Harbor. “And you have to really steel yourself for some of those.”
I contacted Hassan’s office again this morning and have still not received an answer.
Update:
Reached by email this afternoon, Senator Ayotte’s communications director, Liz Johnson, promptly replied that Ayotte has seen some of the video content and also read about it.
Planned Parenthood’s Abortion Horror
Planned Parenthood’s abortion dynasty shakes with each new video released by the Center for Medical Progress, but it still stands strong. In the end, either you are okay with Planned Parenthood killing more than 300,000 babies each year, or you are not. If you are sanguine about such activity, it’s doubtful that your mind will be changed by the revelation that Planned Parenthood sells the fruits of its labor. If you are anti-abortion, it’s not the bartering over brain stems and scraps of kidney tissue that horrifies you most, but the roughly 1 million abortions performed each year in the United States.
Today’s new video from CMP is horrific beyond belief. Here is the video, below. I do not recommend that you watch it. In it, Holly O’Donnell, a former employee of Stem Express, a tissue procurement company that contracted with Planned Parenthood, describes witnessing a baby that was born alive being vivisected in order for it’s brain to be harvested. Disturbing footage also shows what the baby she describes would have looked like, though it’s not the same baby, but rather a baby of the same age.
If the revelations of the Kermit Gosnell case didn’t cause abortion supporters to change their minds, will these videos have any affect? Gosnell was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted, in part, of murdering babies who had been born alive. Do these videos from CMP force abortion supporters to ask themselves, “what is the difference between Kermit Gosnell and Planned Parenthood?”
Abby Johnson, the former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas and now a pro-life advocate, recalled recently how some Planned Parenthood workers discussed late-term abortions:
I remember one day at Planned Parenthood we were standing around in the POC [Products of Conception] lab talking about how far along Warren Hern performed abortions (he performs them up until the date of birth in Colorado). I remember my boss laughing and saying, “He aborts them so far along they come out crying and looking for their mama.” Everyone in the room laughed as she made the motion of holding a baby up and spanking its bottom. I went to a friend of mine and asked her what she thought of aborting babies so late…I had always been uncomfortable with late-term abortion. She said, “Well, it’s better to kill them before they are put in a dumpster.” And that was how I then began to justify late-term abortion in my mind…”better than in a dumpster.”
Many pro-abortion people have doubled down in their support of Planned Parenthood. We’ve seen familiar excuses, such as that abortion is merely “3%” of what Planned Parenthood does. That number is much disputed. The Washington Post’s Fact Checker gave the 3% claim a rating of three Pinocchios, saying:
While Planned Parenthood has no legal obligation to make its data more public, it is unfortunate that the public has limited access to data about the organization. Planned Parenthood could end the speculation–and Pinocchios–by providing a more transparent breakdown of its clients, referrals and sources of revenues.
But even if it weren’t, 300,000+ dead babies is 300,000+ dead babies. Does it matter whether that equates to 3%, 33%, or 100% of Planned Parenthood’s business?
In the end, either you are okay with abortion, or you are not.
Edit: This post has been updated to clarify that the footage of the dead baby is of a different baby that was the same age as the one O’Donnell describes.