That badly edited hit job video on Planned Parenthood has had its intended effect, raising massive outrage among the anti-choice goons and providing easy political points for "deeply concerned" Republicans like Bobby Jindal, who ordered a state investigation into Planned Parenthood earlier this week.
But Jindal isn't the only GOP governor looking to score some easy points on a fake story, Georgia's GOP Gov. Nathan Deal wants a piece of this action too.
Gov. Nathan Deal ordered a review of Planned Parenthood and its five clinics in Georgia on Thursday after an undercover video by an anti-abortion group accused the group of illegally selling body parts of aborted fetuses.
Deal’s office said in a statement that the Department of Community Health and the Department of Public Health will jointly review the clinics in Georgia to “ensure the horrific practice is not occurring here.” He was quickly seconded by Attorney General Sam Olens, who also offered to probe the “alarming allegations of horrendous practices.”
It’s the latest aftershock of a secretly-recorded video that shows an executive working for the reproductive health group discussing harvesting body parts from aborted fetuses. Republican-run committees in the U.S. House and Senate have vowed to investigate the issue as well, and hearings are likely soon.
Staci Fox, the chief executive of Planned Parenthood Southeast, said the regional organization doesn’t provide tissue donation services. But she said it’s standard practice in the medical community to donate tissue for scientific research and receive reimbursement for expenses such as transportation costs.
“These charges are completely false, and they are based on politics,” said Fox, who said she will cooperate fully with the inquest. “These medical issues shouldn’t be politicized in this way. Georgians want our elected officials focused on solutions, not making more problems.”
So yes, this is a deliberate effort to drown Planned Parenthood and "defund" the organization. It failed a few years ago when James O' Keefe tried it, but apparently this attempt may be somewhat more successful.
By the way, if you're wondering how the Republicans jumped on this so quickly, it's because this entire screw job was planned well in advance.
Republican lawmakers knew about a viral Planned Parenthood "sting video" well before it was released Tuesday, CQ Roll Call is reporting.
Since the video -- which appears to show a Planned Parenthood medical official discussing how abortion providers typically go about procuring fetal tissue for researchers -- was released, congressional leaders have called for an investigation into the claims raised by the group behind the video. Abortion foes say the video reveals that Planned Parenthood is selling the organs of aborted fetuses.
At least two members of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus admitted to CQ Roll Call that they had seen the video before its public release. Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), pictured above, said he saw the video a month ago but didn't act on its supposed revelations immediately because "the hope was to have as much information as possible so that the authorities could be notified effectively before the media."
And of course the plan was always to use the "shocking video" as a catalyst for the GOP War on Women.
“The gravity of the situation most definitely” changes things, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told POLITICO Thursday. “This is not just Republicans. It’s independents. It’s Democrats…. Americans don’t want their tax dollars spent doing what they’re doing.”
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his two top deputies — McCarthy and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) — called for investigations almost immediately after the controversial video was made public, including whether it profits off fetal body parts. And within 24 hours, at least two powerful committees had announced probes on the issue.
McCarthy is already talking about defunding the organization through the appropriations process. And in the Senate, GOP leaders who have been eyeing a vote on legislation banning abortions after 20 weeks of gestation say this will give them momentum to clear the bill later this session.
“I think it really probably enhances the prospects of something like that passing right now,” South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the third-ranking Senate Republican, said Thursday. “I think that’s such an egregious, awful, horrible example out there, which I think just elevates the importance of addressing it. So I think it probably helps the bill.”Why, one would be forgiven for believing that this was an organized attempt to destroy Planned Parenthood and pass a national abortion ban with a veto-proof majority by generating outrage on purpose.
Hell, my own jackass of a senator Rand Paul is now using this drummed-up outrage to block the federal highway bill.
Sen. Rand Paul is the latest lawmaker to throw a wrench into delicate transportation bill negotiations, suggesting he might hold up the legislation over the controversial Planned Parenthood video that surfaced this week.
The Kentucky Republican and presidential candidate released multiple statements Friday promising to use “all legislative vehicles” to “defeat and defund Planned Parenthood” next week. The statements on his Senate and campaign websites don’t directly mention the pending highway and transit legislation, but it is the next big-ticket item on the Senate’s to-do list, with a procedural vote set for Tuesday.
“The recent revelation that this taxpayer-funded organization is selling body parts of the unborn further proves that this agency deserves our scorn not our tax dollars,” he said in a statement. “I plan to do whatever I can to stop them and will introduce an amendment to pending Senate legislation to immediately strip every dollar of Planned Parenthood funding.”
We'll see. Again, if safe, legal abortions are simply unavailable, then abortions are still going to happen, the difference is a lot more women will die in the process. But this has all the hallmarks of revenge against a President and the people who voted for them. Republicans lost huge issues in the last 30 days on Obamacare, same-sex marriage, the Confederate flag and now Iran, and now they want to make sure liberals lose big too. The goal now is to punish the Obama coalition, starting with women (who just happen to be the most important part of the Hillary coalition, pure coincidence I'm sure.)
And that's the point.
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The sad thing is that these vile scum think the only reason for government regulations is to deny people things they couldn't otherwise make illegal. Notice how they think any proposed firearm safety law is a cynical attempt to make gun ownership illegal? It's called "projection."
This one is also in the nature of playing Beltway Democrats as the suckers they so often are: they've seen in the past how Democrats were so eager to "get ahead of the issue" that they supported firing Shirley Sharrod and defunding ACORN based on deceptively-edited videos without waiting for all the evidence to come in. Hey, when a tactic works, why stop doing it?
Republicans also count on the old media cliché: Accusation: scare headlines on page 1. Retraction: below the fold on page 12. Hopefully, Democrats will start having a pre-packaged "known liars release another heavily-edited video" press release to counter this garbage. But I'm not holding my breath.
The demonization of ACORN still rankles: why go through the bother of gutting your opponent's GOTV machine when you can goad him into gutting it on your behalf?
A whole bunch of rancid little scum weasels are doing cheerful turns and pirouettes over that fraudulent bit of tape. It was constructed to appeal to their deepest desires according to their laboriously constructed narratives, and the machinery is purring like clockwork. Totally dishonest, of course, but supremely effective.
Our side has been caught for decades between speaking the truth on the one hand and spinning compelling lies on the other. It's not getting the job done. The kossacks are all in on the "Believe harder in scarier lies, for Victory!" strategy, but I hold that would be a colossal blunder: "Speak the truth under all circumstances, and the people will follow" is my counsel.
In an astonishing bit of accidental timing, rumors from the Year Kos party and activist networking emporium in Phoenix would have us believe that #BlackLivesMatter have shut down seminars involving Bernie and O'Malley. The college educated white male base is not taking this well, puzzled and alarmed that anyone would take issue with the leaders who the activist base have declared the last best hope for people of color to get what the activist base has decided is good for them. Evidently, the activist base believes that only the activist base is entitled to attack their friends and natural allies in an effort to get what they themselves want - embarrassment to their friends and natural allies and sabotage to their common interests be damned.
Go #BLM! Don't let anybody talk down to you for any reason.
It is probably too much to hope that Congress will call the actor in the video pretending to be a buyer of fetal body parts to be questioned, or for the Center for Medical Progress to explain why they lied in their application for 501(c)3 status to the IRS.
All people of good will support the prosecution of tax cheats and those who commit fraud in pursuing 501(c)3 status.
The issue, as we are all too aware, is that in the name of controlling costs the Republicans have choked off funding to the IRS (and other agencies) so as to inhibit vigorous and effective enforcement of the law. This is precisely how the fundie handjob churches get away with tax subsidised political activities that would gag a turkey buzzard.
Updates continue to arrive.
Kossacks are dismissing the incident as a hit job contrived by the Clinton campaign, for obviously #BLM lacks both the intelligence and the agency to decide for themselves what they want.
Simultaneously, Kossacks are dismissing the incident as an unfortunate misunderstanding due to a lack of awareness about Sanders and his inherent awesomeness, for obviously #BLM lacks both the intelligence and the agency to decide for themselves what they want.
Considering the recent discussions about the Sanders campaign inviting the white racists to join in resurrecting the pre Civil Rights New Deal coalition - reinforced by recent kossack boasts the Teabaggers are flocking to Bernie's message - it seems to me that #BLM knows exactly what they are doing while the Sanderistas are just another gang of authoritarian goons, flatfooted by an activist revolt against attempts to herd them into line.
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