Patterico's Pontifications

11/30/2015

Censoring Speech Does Not Change The Barbaric Practices Taking Place At Planned Parenthood

Filed under: General — Dana @ 6:36 pm



[guest post by Dana]

In the aftermath of the Colorado shootout at a Planned Parenthood facility, calls are being made to censor our language because extremists on the left believe that by using softer language, deranged people will not commit heinous crimes such as three days ago.

Colorado’s Gov. Hickenlooper on CNN’s State of the Union show Sunday, immediately jumped right onto the rhetorical bandwagon as well:

Guest host Brianna Keilar asked, “I do want to ask you a final question here. Planned Parenthood, almost immediately, even before we exactly knew the facts or anything about the motivation here. We now know that the shooter referenced ‘baby parts’ when he was arrested. Planned Parenthood is calling this domestic terrorism. Do you agree with that assessment?”

Hickenlooper said, “Certainly it’s a form of terrorism, and maybe in some way it’s a function of the inflammatory rhetoric we see on all — so many issues now, there are bloggers and talk shows where they really focus on trying to get people to that point of boiling over. Just intense anger. Maybe it’s time to look at how do we tone down some that rhetoric. Obviously no one is going to try to reduce free speech in that country but that rhetoric — if people are in some way emotionally unstable or psychologically unbalanced, that intensity of rhetoric sometimes seems to pull a trigger in their brain that they lose contact with what reality is.”

So unsurprisingly, the narrative being touted by the usual suspects is that the murder of three individuals and subsequent wounding of 9 more individuals was a direct result of pro-lifers and their “incendiary rhetoric”. However, please be mindful that not all “incendiary rhetoric” is created equal. For example, we were assured that when Black Lives Matter protesters marched this summer, chanting “pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon,” the open season on police officers across the country had nothing to do with that or any other “incendiary rhetoric” coming from the group. Further, the mere suggestion that might have something to with it, was attacked as being racist.

But here’s the thing, when we look at what current and former Planned Parenthood employees, as well as procurement specialists have themselves revealed about the organization’s practices, there really is no kind way to describe the barbaric butchery business that is Planned Parenthood:

“We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”

*****

“We’ve just been working with people who want particular tissues, like, you know, they want cardiac, or they want eyes, or they want neural,” says Dr. Westhoff to a prospective fetal organ buyer. “Certainly, everything we provide–oh, gonads! Oh my God, gonads. Everything we provide is fresh.

*****

[T]wo lab techs are shown picking through fetal tissue with tweezers in an effort to find the organs of an aborted baby. After one of the techs picks out a pair of intact kidneys someone off-camera laughs and says, “Five stars!”

*****

Oh yeah, the fetus was already in the vaginal canal whenever we put her in the stirrups, it just fell out,” she explains of situations where there has been a great enough degree of cervical dilation to procure an intact fetus.

*****

With suction complete, look for your Sopher clamp. This instrument is about thirteen inches long and made of stainless steel. At one end are located jaws about 2 ½ inches long and about ¾ on an inch wide with rows of sharp ridges or teeth. This instrument is for grasping and crushing tissue. When it gets hold of something, it does not let go.

A second trimester D&E abortion is a blind procedure. The baby can be in any orientation or position inside the uterus. Picture yourself reaching in with the Sopher clamp and grasping anything you can. At twenty weeks gestation, the uterus is thin and soft so be careful not to perforate or puncture the walls. Once you have grasped something inside, squeeze on the clamp to set the jaws and pull hard – really hard. You feel something let go and out pops a fully formed leg about 4 to 5 inches long. Reach in again and grasp whatever you can. Set the jaw and pull really hard once again and out pops an arm about the same length. Reach in again and again with that clamp and tear out the spine, intestines, heart and lungs.

*****

Holly O’Donnell, a former procurement technician at StemExpress, said at Mar Monte’s Alameda clinic in San Jose a co-worker named Jessica brought over the most fully developed baby she had ever seen and said, “I want you to see something kind of cool.”

There she saw the “closest thing to a [fully-developed] baby I’ve seen.”

“It had a face. It wasn’t completely torn up,” she said. “Its nose was very pronounced.”

“She has one of her instruments, and she taps the heart, and it starts beating.”

“I’m looking at this fetus, and it’s heart is beating,” O’Donnell said in astonishment.

“I don’t know if that constitutes it’s technically dead, or it’s alive,” she continued.

Dr. Ben Van Handel, the vice president of Novogenix Laboratories, says on the video “there are times when, after the [abortion] procedure is done, that the heart is still beating.”

O’Donnell said that, after showing her the child’s beating heart, Jessica told her, “This is a really good fetus, and it looks like we can procure a lot from it.”

She then asked O’Donnell to remove the baby’s brain with scissors through the baby’s face.

*****

The video shows Gatter haggling over payments for intact fetal specimens and offering to use a “less crunchy technique” to get more intact body parts.

*****

Q. When you perform an intact D&E, Dr. Westhoff, is the fetus living when you commence vaginal delivery?
A. Although I don’t always check for it, I believe there is usually a heartbeat and that the fetus is living.
~
Q. And at the time you either cut the umbilical cord or collapse the skull, is the fetus living?

A. Yes.

~
Q. Dr. Westhoff, do you make it a practice either to effect fetal demise by using potassium chloride, as we have heard about, or injecting a toxin into the amniotic sac prior to the time that you effect a surgical evacuation of the uterus?

A. No, Mr. Hut, I usually do not do so.

*****

I remember one day at Planned Parenthood we were standing around in the POC 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.”


There just aren’t any nice words to describe this particular sort of madness. Nor should there be.

–Dana

UPDATE BY PATTERICO: At this busy time in my life, I just want to express my undying appreciation to Dana for channeling my thoughts of the last couple of days so precisely. I keep intending to do a post that says: we condemn the lunatic’s violence but that doesn’t mean we have to be silent about Planned Parenthood’s atrocities. I’m thankful Dana made the time to make the point and make it well.

11/29/2015

Filling The Gap

Filed under: General — Dana @ 6:38 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Taking a break from the political news of the day, I wanted to tell you about walks with Mary. It’s always good for me to step away from the chaos of the world, back to real life , you know, where we live.

Mary is my elderly neighbor. Up until this summer, she had been an active and lively resident of our neighborhood. Tiny like a little bird, and capped with white cotton puff hair, she would scurry about feeding her cats in her open garage, drive to the neighborhood market in her big red Buick, and chat with neighbors. Then, without warning, she disappeared from sight. We discovered she had become a shut-in. Out of the blue, her legs no longer obeyed the command to walk. The outside world threatened to become a memory as her world became confined to the four walls of her home. Her family arranged for a caretaker to come every morning to get her up and help with her personal needs, and then after breakfast, propped her up in her recliner to spend the day in the company of a blaring TV and curtains opened so she could watch her neighborhood pass by until family members brought dinner. Hard of hearing, vision fading, and legs no longer working properly, loneliness set in. How could it not?

Several years ago, I experienced a series of awful physical setbacks, and one of the realities I faced was a period of not being able to walk without the aid of a walker, and without tremendous pain. It was a very dark and lonely time, and it was a daily struggle to remain optimistic that eventually I would be able to walk normally again and come to the end of the dark tunnel I found myself in. It was hell getting there, but through God’s grace, eventually I did.

For a few months now, I have been pushing Mary several miles every day in her wheelchair. Because that’s what you do when you can, and your friend can’t – you push and walk.

While we walk, we talk about the day’s weather, critique gardens, say hello to the pups that we know by name, and of course, chat with any neighbors who happen to be outside. And in between, she repeatedly tells me what a good girl I am to take her out and how much she appreciates it. She says she feels better being in the sunshine again. Who wouldn’t? But here’s the thing, I’m really the one who benefits from our walks. Who could bear knowing their elderly neighbor was essentially trapped in their home? I couldn’t. So we walk. And the best thing about being with Mary is the history she carries with her. The first car she drove was a Willys-Knight. The first election she voted in was Truman versus Dewey. She remembers the years when the rain was unrelenting and the now bone-dry zanjas regularly overflowed and wreaked havoc on the roads. She remembers her boyfriend enlisting in the Army so he could fight the Nazis. And she remembers marrying him when he returned. Mary has also regaled me with stories about our sleepy town, including the 1948 unsolved mystery of a popular high school classmate murdered while on a date with her boyfriend, who was also a fellow classmate and heir to his family’s fortune. No one was charged with the murder that took place on a dark road. There were two suspects: her boyfriend, and according to the boyfriend, an unidentified man with a sawed-off shotgun attempting to rob them. Was there a cover-up? Did his family’s country club status help get him off? And why, some 50 years later when local journalists dug up the story and began looking into it, were they warned to “leave it alone”? According to Mary, townspeople had indeed believed there was a cover-up. Both families went into seclusion behind the walls of their grand old mansions, and rumors of alcoholism and lost fortunes persisted. Mary is a full volume of walking-talking history just waiting to have her pages turned.

For an hour out of each day, the simple pleasure of taking Mary for a walk is mine. This filling the gap is an unglamorous and unremarkable “calling”, and one that suits me just fine. I love that I continue to walk with ease. I love that I can walk for someone else. And I especially love that for at least this season, a little bird can experience the warm autumn sun on her face and still be blinded by a brilliant blue sky before she is called to fly away home.

Untitled-1

–Dana

Michael Walsh: Hillary’s Million Little Lies

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 12:03 pm



I guess we’re supposed to remain silent about this stuff because much of it is old — but she’s been lying her whole life:

To hear Hillary Clinton tell it, she was named for Sir Edmund Hillary, the conqueror of Mount Everest — even though she was already 6 years old when he made his famous ascent.

On a visit to war-torn Bosnia in 1996, she claimed she and her entourage landed under sniper fire and had to run “with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base” — although videos of her arrival show her waltzing serenely across the tarmac, waving to the crowd.

She blamed the 2012 attack on American diplomatic and intelligence-gathering installations in Benghazi on “a disgusting video” when she knew almost from the first moment that it was a jihadist assault that took the lives of four Americans, including the ambassador to Libya.

No wonder the late William Safire, writing in The New York Times in 1996, at the height of the Whitewater investigation, called her a “congenital liar.” Said Safire: “She is in the longtime habit of lying; and she has never been called to account for lying herself or in suborning lying in her aides and friends.”

Good stuff. Read it all.

11/28/2015

A Police Officer And Man Of God Killed; A President Pushes For Stricter Gun Control

Filed under: General — Dana @ 8:58 am



[guest post by Dana]

Two updates regarding the shootout yesterday at a Planned Parenthood facility.

First, about the police officer killed during the shootout:

Garrett Swasey, 44, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs police officer who was shot and killed while responding to a shooting at a Planned Parenthood office, was described by his fellow church members and friends as a courageous man and loving father who drew strength and inspiration from his Christian faith.

He was married, with two young children, and had been on the campus police force for six years. He also spent seven years as a co-pastor at Hope Chapel in Colorado Springs.

Swasey’s co-pastor, Scott Dontanville, stated that although Swasey was against abortion, it would not have played a part in his decision to answer the call to help those whose lives were in danger:

“I don’t think that was on his mind,” he said. “He was there to save lives. That’s the kind of guy he is.”

Another fellow pastor of Swasey’s, Kurt Aichele remarked:

Swasey frequently responded to dangerous calls off campus. One of his bedrock beliefs was putting other people’s lives before his own.

“It’s not the first time that he’s been placed in harm’s way,” he said. “He’s an absolute man of courage.”

Secondly, President Obama made a statement about the shootout. As we have come to expect from him in the aftermath of these tragedies, he took advantage of the opportunity to push for more gun control. This less than 24 hours after the Officer Swasey’s death:

Untitled-1

–Dana

11/27/2015

Shootout At Planned Parenthood Facility In Colorado Springs

Filed under: General — Dana @ 4:59 pm



[guest post by Dana]

A shootout involving the police and an individual armed with an AK-47-style weapon at a Planned Parenthood facility just ended as the suspected gunman reportedly walked out of the building and was immediately taken into custody.

From a news conference right before the stand-off ended:

At a press conference at 4:07 p.m., Lt. Catherine Buckley with the Colorado Springs Police Department said the scene is still active and they have not established voice contact with a suspect in the Planned Parenthood building. Police say the suspect has fired at police. People are being evacuated from the Planned Parenthood building.

Buckley said the suspect brought items into the building with him. There are also items he left outside the building. Police do not know what they are and can’t go inside until the scene is stable.

Police say the incident is contained in the Planned Parenthood building, but people who are in businesses and buildings in the vicinity of the shooting will stay in lockdown until the area is deemed safe.

The shootout began late this morning:

The gunshots were first reported near the Planned Parenthood facility on Centennial Boulevard at around 11:38 a.m.

The gunman, whom authorities have not been able to identify, began firing at police from the parking lot and then from inside the building, a law enforcement official told NBC News.

Three officers were injured initially, and a fourth officer was later hurt, Buckley said. She added later that a fifth may have been injured as well.

After the shooting, the gunman entered the building.

All in all, 11 people have been reported injured in today’s shootout. Five of the injured are police officers. Authorities warned that there could be more as the crime scene is processed.

In spite of news reports – and Planned Parenthood itself – stressing that it was not known whether the organization was the target of the shooting, Planned Parenthood, nonetheless, released this statement:

Untitled-1

And Cecile Richards, president of PPFA, followed up with a tweet of her own:

Further, it was reported that President Obama had been notified of the shootout.

Our prayers are with the injured and their families.

–Dana

UPDATE: Two unidentified civilians and a police officer were killed in the shootout. Garrett Swasey, 44, worked for the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. According to the university’s chancellor, Swasey went 10 miles to the scene of the shootout “in support of an officer under fire”. He was a six-year veteran of the university’s police force.

Third Strike “Reform” Costs Another Life

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:17 am



This goes on all the time, folks. All. The. Time. It just rarely gets publicized.

A third-strike defendant who was released from prison in 2013 under a California voter initiative–and over the objections of Orange County prosecutors–is accused of murder in Oklahoma, officials tell the Weekly.

. . . .

Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert Fitzgerald re-sentenced and released Beckman/Beckmann from prison on June 18, 2013, under Proposition 36, which revised California’s three strikes law to impose a life sentence only when the new felony conviction is “serious or violent.”

I don’t know the facts of the hearing at which the judge found this fellow was not a threat to the public, but I would not be too quick to pounce on the judge without knowing more. The voters demanded that dangerous people be released, whether they realized it or not.

Good on the O.C. Weekly for getting the word out. But guys? There are many, many, many more such stories.

Thanks to Ben S. for the tip.

Harvard “Hate Crime” Almost Certainly a Hoax

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:11 am



Unexpectedly!

On November 20, I had this to say about the latest alleged racial atrocity at a campus:

Privately, I put the odds at over 90%, but you want to be conservative with your public statements.

It didn’t take any special genius to predict this. All you had to do was be a sentient being who pays attention to such things.

And here is the fairly overwhelming and very entertaining proof, spread out over four joyous, well-written, sardonic, and brilliantly argued blog posts, that the hoax was perpetrated to publicize the latest racial grievance, which was not getting traction until the hoaxsters decided to give the cause a fraudulent burst of fame.

Enjoy. It’s a lot of fun to read.

UPDATE: Further reading: Randall Kennedy (who is cited in the debunking linked above) seems quite nonplussed in the New York Times. Still, the Royall Asses are probably thrilled that he even brought up their pet issue. (Read their debunking to see what I mean. I’m not publicizing it further here.)

11/26/2015

A Tale of Two Universities

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 11:29 am



After students saw a Confederate flag displayed on a laptop, Framingham State University Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer Sean L. Huddleston wrote an email which said:

A student reported a bias incident today, in which the image of the Confederate flag was displayed on a laptop. Many of you may be aware that last month we received a Bias Incident involving two other students for a similar issue. Although related in nature, the two incidents involve separate parties.

. . . .

We recognize that bias incidents are upsetting for the entire campus community, but especially for the target(s) and witness(es) of these incidents. It is strongly suggested that anyone impacted by a bias incident find someone to speak with.

Meanwhile, in Oklahoma, one university president has a different attitude. I’m going to quote his email in its entirety because it deserves it:

This past week, I actually had a student come forward after a university chapel service and complain because he felt “victimized” by a sermon on the topic of 1 Corinthians 13. It appears that this young scholar felt offended because a homily on love made him feel bad for not showing love! In his mind, the speaker was wrong for making him, and his peers, feel uncomfortable.

I’m not making this up. Our culture has actually taught our kids to be this self-absorbed and narcissistic! Any time their feelings are hurt, they are the victims! Anyone who dares challenge them and, thus, makes them “feel bad” about themselves, is a “hater,” a “bigot,” an “oppressor,” and a “victimizer.”

I have a message for this young man and all others who care to listen. That feeling of discomfort you have after listening to a sermon is called a conscience! An altar call is supposed to make you feel bad! It is supposed to make you feel guilty! The goal of many a good sermon is to get you to confess your sins—not coddle you in your selfishness. The primary objective of the Church and the Christian faith is your confession, not your self-actualization!

So here’s my advice:

If you want the chaplain to tell you you’re a victim rather than tell you that you need virtue, this may not be the university you’re looking for. If you want to complain about a sermon that makes you feel less than loving for not showing love, this might be the wrong place.

If you’re more interested in playing the “hater” card than you are in confessing your own hate; if you want to arrogantly lecture, rather than humbly learn; if you don’t want to feel guilt in your soul when you are guilty of sin; if you want to be enabled rather than confronted, there are many universities across the land (in Missouri and elsewhere) that will give you exactly what you want, but Oklahoma Wesleyan isn’t one of them.

At OKWU, we teach you to be selfless rather than self-centered. We are more interested in you practicing personal forgiveness than political revenge. We want you to model interpersonal reconciliation rather than foment personal conflict. We believe the content of your character is more important than the color of your skin. We don’t believe that you have been victimized every time you feel guilty and we don’t issue “trigger warnings” before altar calls.

Oklahoma Wesleyan is not a “safe place”, but rather, a place to learn: to learn that life isn’t about you, but about others; that the bad feeling you have while listening to a sermon is called guilt; that the way to address it is to repent of everything that’s wrong with you rather than blame others for everything that’s wrong with them. This is a place where you will quickly learn that you need to grow up!

This is not a day care. This is a university!

I love this man.

I want my children to go to a place like this, not a place like Framingham State University or 98% of the other universities out there.

I read this to my mom and she said: “How long will it take them to fire him?”

Happy Thanksgiving!

Filed under: General — Dana @ 8:06 am



[guest post by Dana]

Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving to all Patterico readers! Suffice it to say, I’m thankful for the generosity of our host as he continues to provide this platform for all of us to speak our minds, whether we post or comment.

Anyway, my turkey is in the oven (olive oil and balsamic vinegar rub, fresh oranges, salt, pepper, and cranberries), two pumpkin pies down, one pear pie still to make. It’s going to be an extra-busy day, what with all the cooking, hostessing duties, and efforts to reduce my Thanksgiving carbon impact and not offend anyone as we celebrate “white, cis-hetropatriarchal Christian fascism,” otherwise known as Thanksgiving.

May we all have a Vox-free day because we are no longer children in need of an index card, and because we understand that at the end of the day, it is Love and Grace that triumphs over all else.

–Dana

11/25/2015

The Clinton News Network Rides Again

Filed under: General — JVW @ 10:18 pm



[guest post by JVW]

CNN reporter Elise Labott, part of the network’s global affairs team, was recently given a two-week suspension for sending out a Tweet critical of last week’s House vote to tighten the vetting process for refugees from Syria and points beyond.

The Tweet apparently violates a CNN policy prohibiting their reporters from editorializing on “partisan” issues.

Whether prompted by Ms. Labott’s indiscretion or whether the timing is purely coincidental, conservative outlets such as the Daily Caller are reporting that Labott was unusually receptive to and accommodating of suggestions from one Philippe Reines, a Hillary! Clinton aide turned State Department flack turned Hillary! Clinton aide. On the morning that The Once and Future Inevitable Next President of the United States was being grilled in the Senate over her behavior during the Benghazi imbroglio, Labott and Reines begin an email correspondence which has been uncovered by a Freedom of Information Act request by Gawker Media. At one point in the exchange Labott seems to refer back to a previous conversation she had with Reines, asking him in an email message, “are you sure rand paul wasn’t at any hearings?” Within five minutes, she sends out this tweet:

A few hours later when Her Majesty’s testimony had wrapped up, Labott emails Reines to pass along her congratulations on Hillary!’s testimony: “She was great. well done. I hope you are going to have a big drink tonight.”

Still later that evening, Reins emails Labott to mention that he has another tweet to suggest (it should be noted here that, like his boss, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Philippe Reins appears to have a fondness for conducting government business on private email servers). She responds, “What did you suggest. [sic] I didn’t see it.” He replies, “Pin,” which appears to refer to a private messaging system. Labott makes a promise to “get back to you,” then six minutes later tweets out the following:

The Rand Paul campaign has naturally jumped all over the story of the CNN reporter colluding with the State Department employee (and Clinton aide) to ensure sympathetic coverage. As of this writing, CNN has not commented upon the situation and Elise Labott remains on suspension for one more week.

-JVW

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