On Tuesday, Live Action, a
pro-life group based in San Jose, California, released the first part of its
series on sex-selection abortion, the process of terminating pregnancies based
on an unborn child’s gender. Part one of the “Gendercide: Sex Selection
in America,” series showed a Planned Parenthood counselor in Austin, Texas,
allegedly giving advice on how to obtain a gender-based abortion.
The second part, released this morning, allegedly showcases a similar
conversation recorded at a NYC-based Planned Parenthood office earlier this
year. In the undercover clip, an employee allegedly helps a woman (an actress
brought in by Live Action) determine if her child is a female so that a
requested sex-selective abortion can take place.
A description of the YouTube video, posted by Live Action, has more about the conversation that is sure to trouble
pro-life activists:
In the video, Planned Parenthood social worker Randi Coun advises the woman
on an early, definitive method to tell the gender of her child in the late first
or early second trimester: “So if you were to have what’s called a CVS test,
which is, do you know what that is?” she asks, referring to the genetic
Chorionic Villus Sampling test. “It’s done between 11 and 13 weeks, so it is a
test that you could do now.” CVS tests have a risk of miscarriage of about 1 in
100, which Coun did not mention, and are typically done to test for genetic
disorders in a pregnancy.
Coun also reassures the woman that she can carry her pregnancy farther into
term before her abortion. “An abortion at any stage up to 24 weeks is considered
a safe procedure,” she asserts. ” It’s not that it’s unsafe, or that there’s a
lot more risk involved, it‘s just there’s more steps involved and it’s just a
little more complicated.” Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger Center in New
York City does abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy and is the organization’s
national headquarters.
“I can tell you that here at Planned Parenthood we believe that it’s not up
to us to decide what is a good or a bad reason for somebody to decide to
terminate a pregnancy,” Coun adds concerning the woman’s request for a
sex-selective abortion. Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards yesterday opposed
a ban on sex-selective abortions on the grounds that it would “limit [a woman's]
choices as she makes personal medical decisions.”
The investigative pro-life group Live Action,
which has released videos exposing the abuses at the Planned Parenthood abortion
business across the country, has released a new video today showing a Planned
Parenthood abortion clinic in Austin, Texas encouraging a woman to get a
sex-selection abortion.
The video shows a Planned Parenthood staffer encouraging the woman to obtain
a late-term abortion because she was purportedly carrying a girl and wanted to
have a boy. The video is the first in a new series titled “Gendercide:
Sex-Selection in America,” that Live Action tells LifeNews will be exposing the
practice of sex-selective abortion in the United States and how Planned
Parenthood and the rest of the abortion industry facilitate the selective
elimination of baby girls in the womb.
“I see that you’re saying that you want to terminate if it’s a girl, so are
you just wanting to continue the pregnancy in the meantime?” a Planned
Parenthood counselor named “Rebecca” offers the woman, who is purportedly still
in her first trimester and cannot be certain about the gender.
“The abortion covers you up until 23 weeks,” explains Rebecca, “and usually
at 5 months is usually (sic) when they detect, you know, whether or not it’s a
boy or a girl.”
The woman asks, “Do you think I should go and just ask for an ultrasound and
just not tell [the doctor] that I’m gonna terminate if it’s a girl, or…I just
feel like there’s been some judgment for my…”
“To be honest with you, um, I would probably think so,” the Planned
Parenthood staffer responds.
“But do you think I still just shouldn’t worry about telling them that I
would be terminating if it’s a girl?” the pregnant patient repeats later.
“Right,” Planned Parenthood says. “I would.”
Live Action says the late-term abortion is offered for gender selection even
though doctors agree that the later in term a doctor performs an abortion, the
greater the risk of complications.
In the video (seen below), the Planned Parenthood staffer suggests that the
woman get on Medicaid in order to pay for an ultrasound to determine the gender
of her baby, even though she plans to use the knowledge for an elective
abortion. The abortion facility staffer also tells the woman to “just continue
and try again” for the desired gender after aborting a girl, and adds, “Good
luck, and I hope that you do get your boy.”
Lila Rose, the president of Live Action, condemned Planned Parenthood for its
willingness to facilitate sex-selection abortions.
“The search-and-destroy targeting of baby girls through prenatal testing and
abortion is a pandemic that is spreading across the globe,” she said. “Research
proves that sex-selective abortion has now come to America. The abortion
industry, led by Planned Parenthood, is a willing participant.”
UPDATE: Planned
Parenthood has responded to the video by essentially saying it will do
abortions for any reason and adding that the staffer int eh video violated
unnamed policies and has since been fired from her position.
A few years ago, a national
study showed the possibility that the practice of sex-selection abortions
has made its way from Asia to the United States. Researchers Douglas Almond and
Lena Edlund of the National Academy of Sciences say their analysis of the 2000
Census shows the odds prematurely increasing for Asian-American families from
China, Korea and India to have a boy if they already have a girl child.
On Wednesday, Congress
will debate the Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act (PRENDA), which would ban
sex-selective abortions nationally.
“Planned Parenthood and their ruthless abortion-first mentality is the real
‘war on women’,” says Rose. “Sex-selective abortion is gender discrimination
with lethal consequences for little girls.”
The complete, unedited video and transcript can be viewed at www.ProtectOurGirls.com, a hub of research and
information on sex-selective abortions that Live Action has started.
Planned Parenthood has already attempted to run damage control regarding the
video expose’. The abortion business worked its contacts in the media in recent
weeks to try to head the potential probe and its results off at the pass. Weeks
ago, Planned
Parenthood went to the liberal Huffington Post to try to do damage control
before the results of any possible Live Action investigation are made public.
Planned Parenthood told
the Huffington Post it may be facing another campaign from Live Action to
expose its practices on how it would handle someone seeking a sex-selection
abortion.
According to Planned Parenthood spokesperson Chloe Cooney, clinics in at
least 11 states have reported two dozen or more “hoax visits” over the past
several weeks, in which a woman walks into a clinic, claims to be pregnant and
asks a particular pattern of provocative questions about sex-selective
abortions, such as how soon she can find out the gender of the fetus, by what
means and whether she can schedule an abortion if she’s having a girl.
While patient privacy laws prohibit Planned Parenthood from offering specific
details about the visits and where they occurred, Cooney told The Huffington
Post that the incidents are so unusual and so similar to each other that they
have raised concerns among the organization’s executives that the visits are
being recorded as part of a concerted anti-Planned Parenthood campaign.
“For years opponents of reproductive health and Planned Parenthood have
engaged in secret videotaping tactics with fictitious patient scenarios and
selective editing in an attempt to promote misinformation about Planned
Parenthood and our services,” Cooney said. “As with the prior instances, we
anticipate that once again this group, likely in coordination with a broad range
of anti-abortion leaders, will soon launch a propaganda campaign with the goal
of discrediting Planned Parenthood, and, ultimately, restricting women’s
health.”
While Planned Parenthood has no proof that Live Action is behind the current
series of encounters, Cooney said the group is the most coordinated in their
operations and that the recent string of incidents “follows their pattern
exactly.”
Planned Parenthood’s attempt here to head off the results before the Live
Action releases them was not the first occasion on which it attempted to do so.
Planned Parenthood representatives spoke with the Washington Post just a short
time before Live Action released the sex trafficking videos showing Planned
Parenthood staffers arranging abortions for victims. The abortion business also
spoke with the Washington Post to put its spin on the breaking of the story of
Komen for the Cure cutting its funding — causing a massive backlash and an
eventual reversal in its decision.
A handful of states specifically prohibit sex-selection abortions — Arizona,
Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Illinois — but Planned Parenthood’s representative
made it appear the abortion business would have no problem with doing abortions
for those reasons. In fact, comments from Planned Parenthood’s representative
make some wonder whether the abortion business would ever ask if a woman or
couple wanted an abortion for that reason.
“Decisions about whether to choose adoption, end the pregnancy or to raise a
child have to be left up to a woman, her family and her faith, with the counsel
of her doctor,” Cooney said.
The Post also quoted one Asian-American activist who appeared to oppose
legislation to ban sex-selection abortions.
“Abortion restrictions are a non-solution, and Planned Parenthood and others
who have been providing necessary women’s health care for gazillions of years
are not the perpetuators of the war on women.”
Later, Americans United for Life attorney Anna Franzonello, in
a new column at the Washington Times, provided more evidence showing Planned
Parenthood may be willing to tolerate such gender-based abortions.
For example, in opposition to a Missouri bill that would ban sex-selection
abortions, a Planned Parenthood lobbyist recently testified that the
organization “condemns” sex-selection abortions. However, when a legislator
asked her to answer whether Planned Parenthood would refuse to perform such
abortions if asked by a patient, she dodged the question with political
rhetoric. Three times she refused to answer the question, even when asked
directly to give a “yes or no” response. Americans United for Life was there,
testifying against the discrimination against women inherent in sex-selection
abortions.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Leslie Kantor and Dr. Carolyn
Westhoff penned an article in which they, too, claimed the abortion chain
“condemns” sex selection. However, their article also tellingly admits, “That
doesn’t mean we always agree with the decisions made by people who seek our
help.” Thus, it appears that in Planned Parenthood-speak, “condemnation” of sex
selection does not include “will not participate” in the abortion.
As reported by the Huffington Post, “None of [Planned Parenthood‘s] clinics
will deny a woman an abortion based on her reasons for wanting one, except in
those states that explicitly prohibit sex-selection abortion.”
It seems fairly clear, despite Planned Parenthood’s claimed “condemnation” of
sex selection, it is a willing participant in sex-selection abortions unless it
becomes illegal.
Franzonello suggests Planned Parenthood, if it turns out to have been a
subject of another undercover expose’, will likely dismiss the probe as biased
and misleading rather than answer the charge that it tacitly supports
sex-selection abortions.
Predicting the outcome of rumored current investigations, Planned Parenthood
has said, “We expect that the materials eventually released will focus on
Planned Parenthood’s nonjudgmental discussions with the various women who posed
as possible patients [seeking sex-selection abortions].”
Employing the term “nonjudgmental,” Planned Parenthood hopes that readers
will think “innocuous” and move on. But step back a second. Think about what
“nonjudgmental” is being applied to: “discussions” about killing
a baby girl because she is
female. Not “judging” gender-based killing is taking a side.
Moreover, engaging in “nonjudgmental” discussions about sex selection
undermines Planned Parenthood’s assertion that “Gender bias is contrary to
everything our organization works for daily in communities across the country.”
The veracity of Planned Parenthood’s statement that it “finds the concept of sex
selection deeply unsettling” should be found in any of its “discussions” about
sex selection.
The mere fact that Planned Parenthood is mounting a public relations campaign
before new allegations of bad behaviors casts doubt on those claims. If Planned
Parenthood’s “discussions” were in accord with mainstream American values that
reject gender-based killing, it would have nothing to fear from their public
release. There would be no story to get in front of, no need for damage
control.
What is important, though, is that Planned Parenthood’s participation in this
war on women does not end with its “nonjudgmental” discussions. Planned
Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, appears willing to carry out
sex-selection abortions.
If Planned Parenthood is indeed arranging sex-selection abortions for women
and couples who want boy babies over girls, the further public damage to its
tenuous reputation may be hard to calculate.
Live Action has been instrumental in exposing how the nation’s biggest
abortion business covered up cases of statutory rape and sex trafficking by arranging
abortions on girls who were victimized. Live Action also exposed how Planned
Parenthood would provide erroneous information about fetal development and
abortion’s risks and alternatives to women.
Live
Action also released videotaped footage of calls to 30 Planned Parenthood
centers nationwide in 27 different states where abortion facility staff were
asked whether or not mammograms could be performed on site. Every one of the
Planned Parenthood centers admitted they could not do mammograms. Every Planned
Parenthood, without exception, told the women calling that they will have to go
elsewhere for a mammogram, and many clinics admitted that no Planned Parenthood
clinics provide this breast cancer screening procedure.
It always amazes me when the same folks that despise lobbyists can somehow rationalize support for unions.
Unions ARE lobbyists!
They may be WORSE than lobbyists because they not only employ the same tactic of bribery used by lobbyists, but they also use much more sinister tactics such as bullying and threats!
agroupofpersonswhoworkorconductacampaigntoinfluencemembersofalegislaturetovoteaccordingtothegroup's special interest.
This is precisely what the unions do! Unions and lobbyists both go after taxpayer money by influencing (through bribes or threats) the government officials that oversee the dispersion of the taxpayer's money. Our representatives sit across from the union bosses at the bargaining table. Union leadership promises to keep those government officials in office in exchange for lavish perks at taxpayer expense. Perks that average citizens don't receive, such as the pension and healthcare benefits that are sinking cities like Omaha today! Average citizens not only pay for their own retirement and healthcare, but union bosses request that average citizens also pay for their over-the-top benefits as well! Those union leaders also make it clear to those elected officials sitting across the table from them, that failure to comply with requests for lavish perks will cost them their office.
This is what we see being played out in Wisconsin today to Governor Scott Walker, who had the bravado to stand up to the unions and take away their right of collective bargaining over pensions and healthcare. The unions have already spent over $60 million dollars in an attempt to recall Walker. They have succeeded in forcing a recall election to be held in Wisconsin on June 5th, despite the fact that Walker's actions have been overwhelmingly successful.
It is interesting that the 99% Occupy Movement folks aren't up in arms over the division of class contained within union systems. Think of it this way. The upper class is made up of top union officials, the middle class being union members, and the lower class being the taxpayers. The top union officials aren't really concerned with protecting jobs or even the rights of union members, they are concerned with protecting unions. As long as powerful unions exists, the ability to blackmail government officials (or corporations in the case of private unions) for lavish perks will remain a reality. The top officials (upper class) welcome extravagant salaries and benefits while tossing a bone to union members (middle class) to appease them and maintain support. Who pays for this extravagance? The taxpayers (lower class) of course! So who will stick up for the taxpayer's interest if government officials fall to bribery and bully tactics?!
I have family and friends who are union members and although they don't agree with the politics pushed by the unions, they state that, "Unions protect my job." What they fail to realize is that because of union politics, there won't be jobs for unions to protect! Need an example? Just look to Detroit and the automaker unions, where the cost of lavish perks has made it impossible for once dominant American auto companies to compete with foreign auto companies out of China and Japan. And once again, average citizens are on the hook. To cover the cost of the union's demands, American auto companies have been forced to raise the prices of their autos while passing that cost onto consumers. And when GM still couldn't compete, it was the taxpayers that were forced to bail them out to the tune of almost $50 billion dollars!
And then of course there is the union employees themselves who are bullied by the unions. Employees forced to join unions against their will. Employees forced to contribute money that is spent to elect candidates or to push policies to which they are personally opposed.
Which segues nicely into two points that were brought up above. Price increases and minimum wage increases.
Unions support an ever increasing minimum wage. Raising minimum wage leads to inflation and therefore doesn't leave anyone better off than where they started. In fact, it leaves them worse off in many instances as companies are forced to move jobs overseas to remain competitive on the world marketplace, or close up shop all together. Current wage is better than NO wage. A better answer is to battle inflation to increase the purchasing power at current wages.
Many folks call corporation evil and call for an increase in their taxes. "Pay your fair share!, they cry." They fail to realize that corporations never have and never will pay taxes. They simply pass along taxes to consumers (the same people calling for tax increases on corporations) through price increases. Calls for increasing corporate taxes equate to calls for increasing taxes on consumers!
Unions at one time served a useful purpose. The champion of fair labor practices, wages, working conditions, etc. They were set up to protect the common man. Now who will protect the common man from the unions?!!!
From Nebraska Federation of Catholic School Parents - Parent Advocate
Vol.19, Issue 2 - May 2012
Indiana's new school voucher program has increased options for 4,000 low-and-middle-income families to attend private schools of their choice. Now the program is saving money for the state due to transfers from public to private schools. Do you need proof? The Indiana Department of Education recently announced that the first year of the voucher program will result in $4.2 million in annual savings statewide. This money is being redistributed to public schools statewide. School choice is a win-win situation for private and public schools.
It is interesting to note the additional revenue from raising taxes comes nowhere close to the loss of revenue caused by taxpayers leaving the state likely due to taxes being raised!
By Elizabeth
Harrington - May 29, 2012
New York State accounted for the biggest migration exodus of any state in the
nation between 2000 and 2010, with 3.4 million residents leaving over that
period, according to the Tax Foundation.
Over that decade the state gained 2.1 million, so net migration amounted to
1.3 million, representing a loss of $45.6 billion in income.
Where are they escaping to? The Tax Foundation found that more than 600,000
New York residents moved to Florida over the decade – opting perhaps for the
Sunshine State’s more lenient tax system – taking nearly $20 billion in adjusted
growth income with them.
Over that same time period, 208,794 Pennsylvanians moved to Florida, taking
$8 billion in income.
“Many of these New York and Pennsylvania residents no doubt moved to Florida
for the warm weather,” says the foundation, a nonpartisan research group. “But many
more may have moved there because the state does not have an individual income
tax, an estate tax, nor an inheritance tax.”
The Tax Foundation has created a “migration
calculator” based on data from the Internal Revenue Service, tabulating the
number of individuals moving between states each year, and income affected by
the shifts.
The calculator shows that 612,520 people renounced their citizenship in New
York State and moved to Florida in the 10-year period, taking with them $19.7
billion in adjusted growth income.
Between 2009 and 2010 alone, 40,195 New York residents moved to Florida,
taking $1.3 billion in income.
According to the group, New York ranked second among the states for the
highest state and local tax burden in 2009. The Empire State was ranked highest
for tax burden every year from 1977 until 2006, except in 1984 when it was
ranked second.
New York State has a progressive personal income tax rate ranging from 6.45
percent to 8.82 percent for those earning over $2 million. Sales varies by
county, and is between seven and eight percent. In Manhattan, the sales tax is
8.875 percent.
According to the Retirement Living Center, which examines tax burdens by state
for those nearing retirement, New York also levies a gasoline tax at 49.0 cents
per gallon and a cigarette tax of $4.35 per pack, along with an additional $1.50
per pack in New York City.
New York is also one of 17 states plus the District of Columbia that collects
an estate tax, with a $1 million exemption and a progressive rate
from 0.8 percent to 16 percent.
In 2007, New York State collected $1.1 billion from its estate and gift
taxes, the highest of any of the states, according to the Tax Foundation.
California is also known for more onerous taxes and regulations, and the
foundation shows similar trends of migration from there to other states like
Texas and Arizona.
The Tax Foundation ranked the Golden State sixth highest in the nation for
state and local tax burden in 2009.
Between 2000 and 2010, the most recent data available, 551,914 people left
California for Texas, taking $14.3 billion in income. Texas has no state income
tax or estate tax.
A total of 48,877 people moved to Texas from California between 2009 and 2010
alone, totaling $1.2 billion in income. Another 28,088 from California
relocated to Nevada and 30,663 to Arizona, a loss of $699.1 million and $707.8
million in income respectively.
Overall, California had the most departures between 2009 and 2010 – 406,883
people, representing a loss of $10.6 billion in income. Over that year 365,763
people moved there, representing a net loss of 41,120 residents.
Since 2000 1.2 million more people have left California than have moved
there, the second biggest net loss, after New York.
Florida, meanwhile, had a negative net migration of 966,934 between 2000 and
2010 – meaning nearly a million more people moved to the state than left. Texas
also has a negative net migration – 807,552 – during the same time period.
Florida and Texas rank the two lowest in net migration over the decade,
followed by North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia, each of which has a negative
rate.
The Tax Foundation acknowledges that taxes are not the only reason to flee a
state. “Taxes are one of hundreds of factors that go into a person's decision to
move,” it says on its website. “Others include age, technology, job prospects
and the quality/quantity of government services provided.”
The foundation also points out that the migration calculator is not
definitive. “A true study that sought to quantify the importance of taxes for
locational decisions would need to account for as many other factors as
possible, in addition to possible serial correlation issues between variables,
especially taxes.”
I ran across a stat today (there are over 65 million Catholics in the US
which means Catholics, and Christians, and anyone of faith... following
the precepts of their faith alone could control the outcome of
elections) and it made me consider why so many Catholics and Christians
and those of all faiths would ever vote for the democratic party. They
do so (often ignoring important precepts of their
faith such as the right to life), rationalizing their decision by
telling themselves that by voting democrat they are somehow helping the
poor and needy.
This illustrates a most urgent fact. The
Republicans need to do a much better job communicating the reality that
if one truly wants to help the poor and needy, wealth is required to do
so. That while the democrat’s social policies such as entitlement
programs are aimed at helping the poor and needy, the democrat’s
economic policies destroy the wealth required for ongoing charity.
That Republican economic policies that lead to wealth creation,
combined with Republican social policies encouraging charitable giving
through tax credits not only leads to more effective social assistance
(because government programs are very ineffective including government
social programs), but guarantees the sustainability of social assistance
for the poor and needy. AND…furthermore, it does so while respecting
the potential of the individual and encouraging the pursuit of life,
liberty and happiness.
While the democrat’s entitlement
programs destroy personal accountability and breed generations of
dependence, charities supported by Republican policies encourage and
motivate the individual to strive to reach their full potential rather
than enabling dependence. THIS should be the Republican’s #1 message,
and we should communicate the message much more loud and much more
clear!!!
The party currently has a stigma of creating wealth for selfish purposes. To change this perception, in all the GOP says and does, it should be stressed that the party seeks to create wealth in order to better serve the needy. The concept should become a central principle of the Republican platform.
* The Republican Party will seek to help our brothers and sisters who have fallen on difficult times, through business friendly economic policies which create wealth and through the encouragement of increased charitable giving to those private charities which efficiently and effectively serve the needs of our brothers and sisters in helping them back on their feet and back on their pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.
As it turns out, the Spaniards occupied Mexico for some 300 years and
even the word Hispanic was one employed by the Romans when they
occupied what now is Spain. So, the Spanish language that is spoken
across Latin America is a result of Spanish occupation. Likewise, it was
Spain that occupied Mexico for hundreds of years.
In 1846 the Mexican-American war began in the wake of the 1845
U.S. annexation of Texas. Mexico considered Texas part of its territory
despite the Texas Revolution nearly a decade prior. Mexico never
acknowledged Texas’ independence.
Ultimately, the Americans won the war with Mexico but on February 2
,1848, the two countries signed the Treaty of Guadalupe which
stated that U.S. troops would withdraw from Mexico, including Mexico
City and take ownership of the Southwestern United States.
What’s more, the U.S. agreed to buy the land from
Mexico for $15 million, even though it was won squarely in victory and
there was no obligation to do so. Not at any time did the United States
occupy nor rule Mexico. The United States did not subject Mexicans to
our form of government nor did it leave troops stationed in the country.
The Green River Formation, a largely vacant area of mostly federal land that covers the territory where Colorado, Utah and Wyoming come together, contains about as much recoverable oil as all the rest the world’s proven reserves combined, an auditor from the Government Accountability Office told Congress on Thursday.
The GAO testimony said that the federal government was in “a unique position to influence the development of oil shale” because the Green River deposits were mostly beneath federal land.
It also noted that developing the oil would have an environmental
impact and pose “socioeconomic challenges,” that included bringing “a
sizable influx of workers who along with their families put additional
stress on local infrastructure” and “making planning for growth
difficult for local governments.”
“The Green River Formation--an assemblage of over 1,000 feet of
sedimentary rocks that lie beneath parts of Colorado, Utah, and
Wyoming--contains the world's largest deposits of oil shale,”Anu K.
Mittal, the GAO’s director of natural resources and environment said in
written testimony submitted to the House Science Subcommittee on Energy
and Environment.
“USGS estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3
trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable,
depending on available technology and economic conditions,” Mittal
testified.
“The Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization, estimates
that 30 to 60 percent of the oil shale in the Green River Formation can
be recovered,” Mittal told the subcommittee. “At the midpoint of this
estimate, almost half of the 3 trillion barrels of oil would be
recoverable. This is an amount about equal to the entire world's proven
oil reserves.”
In her oral statement before the subcommittee, Mittal said that
developing the shale oil would create wealth and jobs for the country,
but also challenges for government.
“Being able to tap this vast amount of oil locked within this
formation will go a long way to help to meet our future demands for oil.
The U.S. Geological Survey, as you noted, estimates that the formation
contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil of which half may be
recoverable,” she said.
“As you can imagine having the technology to develop this vast energy
resource will lead to a number of important socioeconomic benefits
including the creation of jobs, increases in wealth and increases in tax
and royalty payments for federal and state governments,” she said.
“While large-scale oil-shale development offers socioeconomic
opportunities it also poses certain socioeconomic challenges that also
should not be overlooked,” she testified. “Oil shale development like
other extractive industries can bring a sizable influx of workers who
along with their families put additional stressed on local
infrastructure. Development from expansion of extractive industries has
historically followed a boom-and-bust cycle making planning for growth
difficult for local governments.”
In her written testimony, Mittal noted that three-fourths of the Green River shale oil is under federal land.
“The federal government is in a unique position to influence the
development of oil shale because nearly three-quarters of the oil shale
within the Green River Formation lies beneath federal lands managed by
the Department of the Interior’s (Interior) Bureau of Land Management
(BLM),” she testified.
The GAO also cited potential environmental impacts from producing oil
from the Green River shale that included the need to draw large
amounts of water, possible harm to water quality, and temporary
degradation of air quality and the clearing of large amounts of
vegetation.
"Developing oil shale and providing power for oil shale operations
and other activities will require large amounts of water and could have
significant impacts on the quality and quantity of surface and
groundwater resources," Mittal said in her written testimony. "In
addition, construction and mining activities during development can
temporarily degrade air quality in local areas. There can also be
long-term regional increases in air pollutants from oil shale processing
and the generation of additional electricity to power oil shale
development operations. Oil shale operations will also require the
clearing of large surface areas of topsoil and vegetation which can
affect wildlife habitat, and the withdrawal of large quantities of
surface water which could also negatively impact aquatic life."
Governor Mitt Romney visited Omaha today, speaking to an audience of
about 500 people at a private fundraiser hosted by Nebraska Governor
Dave Heineman at the downtown Hilton. More than $800,000 was raised for
Romney in what Omaha businessman Bruce Lauritzen called the most
successful political fundraiser in Nebraska history.
Romney pointed out that President Clinton often described himself as a
new Democrat, but that President Obama is anything but…referring to him
as an “old Democrat” who is much more liberal than Clinton.
“He's not the new Democrat. He's the old Democrat. Bill Clinton said
the era of big government is over. This president has brought back the
era of big government with a vengeance,” Romney said.
“Obama wants “hope” and “change”. Well I agree. I hope to change the out of control spending he is doing now,” Romney said.
Romney chided Obama’s attempts at painting himself as a supporter of
energy independence, stating that Obama has prevented oil exploration,
hindered the coal industry, and claims we don’t’ have enough coal and
oil resources to support this country.
He stated, “I support coal, oil, wind, solar and any means of energy
we can harness. Obama say’s he supports all of the above, but what he
really means is that he supports all energy sources that come from above
ground.”
Romney pointed out Obama’s spending record which includes racking up
$5 trillion in national debt by spending more than all of the previous
presidents combined.
“If he gets another four years, that’s going to go up another $4 trillion,” he said.
Obama wants to keep it a secret, but Romney said he plans to inform
college students what their paychecks will look like if Obama is allowed
to continue racking up debt.
Romney promised his first priority after becoming president would be
to repeal Obamacare. He also promised to get the Keystone XL pipeline
from Canada here as well.
The 2012 elections will
feature many close races, likely including the presidential contest.
That makes concern about voter fraud and ballot integrity all the more
meaningful, and a conference held here last weekend by the watchdog
group True the Vote made clear just how high the stakes are.
“Unfortunately, the United States has a long history of voter fraud
that has been documented by historians and journalists,” Supreme Court
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in 2008, upholding a strict Indiana
voter-ID law designed to combat fraud. Justice Stevens, who personally
encountered voter fraud while serving on various reform commissions in
his native Chicago, spoke for a six-member majority. In a decision two
years earlier clearing the way for an Arizona ID law, the Court had
declared in a unanimous opinion that “confidence in the integrity of our
electoral processes is essential to the functioning of our
participatory democracy. Voter fraud drives honest citizens out of the
democratic process and breeds distrust of our government. Voters who
fear their legitimate votes will be outweighed by fraudulent ones will
feel disenfranchised.”
Indeed, a brand-new Rasmussen Reports poll finds that 64 percent of
Americans believe voter fraud is a serious problem, with whites
registering 63 percent agreement and African-Americans 64 percent. A Fox
News poll taken last month found that 70 percent of Americans support
requiring voters to show “state or federally issued photo
identification” to prove their identity and citizenship before casting a
ballot. Majorities of all demographic groups agreed on the need for
photo ID, including 58 percent of non-white voters, 52 percent of
liberals, and 52 percent of Democrats.
Catherine Englebrecht, the Houston businesswoman and mother who
founded True the Vote in 2009 after witnessing an ACORN-style group
registering thousands of illegal or nonexistent voters in Houston, told
the voter observers from 32 states gathered for the summit: “There is
nothing more important this year than your work in making sure
legitimate votes aren’t canceled out by fraud.”
Liberal groups ranging from the ACLU to the NAACP oppose voter-ID
laws, claiming that voter fraud is almost nonexistent and that an ID
requirement would amount to voter suppression. It’s certainly true that
in-person voter fraud — the type of fraud most easily fought with
voter-ID laws — isn’t the whole picture. Voter-ID laws must be combined
with tighter controls on absentee ballots, the tool of choice of
fraudsters. But filmmaker James O’Keefe demonstrated just last month how
easy — and almost impossible to detect — voter impersonation can be: A
white 22-year-old assistant of O’Keefe’s was offered the Washington,
D.C., primary ballot of Attorney General Eric Holder, the most visible
opponent of ID laws.
Just this week in Fort Worth, Texas, a Democratic precinct chairwoman
was indicted on charges of arranging an illegal vote. Hazel Woodard
James has been charged with conspiring with her non-registered son to
have him vote in place of his father. The only reason the crime was
detected was that the father showed up later in the day to vote at the
same precinct. Most fraudsters are smart enough to have their
accomplices cast votes in the names of dead people on the voter rolls,
who are highly unlikely to appear and complain that someone else voted
in their place.
One of the highlights of the True the Vote conference was a speech by
Artur Davis, who was a Democratic congressman from Alabama until last
year. Davis has been an up-and-coming black Democratic leader, having
been selected to second the nomination of Barack Obama at the 2008
Democratic convention in Denver.
But in 2009 he decided to vote against Obamacare because he viewed it
as unworkable and too expensive. When he ran the next year in the
Democratic primary for governor in Alabama, he was attacked as disloyal
and defeated by a coalition of liberals, teachers’ unions, and old-style
black political machines.
He told me that the voter suppression he most observed in his 68
percent African-American district was rampant fraud in counties with
powerful political machines. To keep themselves in power, these machines
would frequently steal the votes of members of minority groups. “I know
it exists, I’ve had the chance to steal votes in my favor offered to
me, and the people it hurts the most are the poor and those without
power,” he said.
Davis made it clear in his speech to True the Vote that much of the
opposition to voter-ID and ballot-integrity laws is a sad attempt to
inject racism into the discussion and intimidate supporters of
anti-fraud laws. “This is not a billy club, this is not a fire hose,” he
told his audience while holding up his driver’s license. “Where is this
notion that if I have a right [to vote], that I don’t have to be
bothered with responsibility?” He concluded with an appeal for all sides
to eschew racial appeals: “We have to be one country, but the way you
become one country is you stop acting like a country that’s divided into
different buckets and bases of people.”
It’s a pity that so much of the discussion about voting this fall
will be drenched in race. Americans have two important rights when it
comes to voting. The first is the right to vote without fear and
intimidation, for which this country fought an epic civil-rights
struggle in the 1960s. Those gains in voter access must be preserved.
But Americans also have a right to vote without their ballots’ being
canceled out by people who are voting twice, are voting for the dead or
nonexistent, or are non-citizens. We can and should accomplish two goals
in the 2012 election — making sure it is easy to vote, and making sure
it is hard to cheat. Groups such as True the Vote will be essential to
make sure both sides of that imperative are fulfilled.
Archimedes didn’t say, “Give me a bad statistic, and I will move the Earth.” But that was only because the ancient Greek mathematician wasn’t familiar with the ways of Washington.
An entire movement has grown up around the factoid that American women make about 80 percent of the pay of men. It is a reliable talking point of Democrats who insist the country is racked by a “War on Women.” A raft of proposed legislation purports to remedy the discrimination exposed by the damning number. It is the only bad statistic with a day devoted to it, “Equal Pay Day,” which falls in April to signify how much longer women have to work into the New Year to make what men earned in the previous year. Tradition says that the day must be marked with wailing and gnashing of teeth, and lots of press releases from advocacy organizations.
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow recently wielded the statistic on Meet the Press, and reacted with shocked disbelief that anyone would question such a cold, hard fact, as if it were as incontestable as the circumference of the Earth.
Never mind that the figure is crude and misleading. The latest data from the Labor Department say that women made 82.2 percent of what men made in the first quarter of 2012. That’s a considerable gap, but comparing all women versus all men is not particularly telling when all sorts of variables — occupation, levels of experience, education, hours worked — are in play.
“Women gravitate,” Carrie Lukas of the Independent Women’s Forum writes, “toward jobs with fewer risks, more comfortable conditions, regular hours, more personal fulfillment and greater flexibility. Simply put, many women — not all, but enough to have a big impact on statistics — trade higher pay for other desirable job characteristics.”
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a feminist outfit obsessed with the wage gap, published a study noting that twice as many women as men work in jobs with median earnings below the federal poverty line for a family of four. Unless all these women — some 5.5 million — were coerced into these positions, this fact alone shows how occupational choice influences the wage gap.
The slogan that invariably accompanies the 80 percent statistic is “equal pay for equal work.” But men and women get paid differently for different work. Warren Farrell points out in his book Why Men Earn More that the 25 worst jobs in terms of stress and physical demands — occupations such as sheet-metal worker and firefighter — are more than 90 percent male. In general, men who are employed full-time work more hours a day than women employed full-time (8.2 hours compared with 7.8, according to the Labor Department), and women are much more likely to interrupt their careers to have children, affecting their earning power over time.
All that notwithstanding, it is a strange time in history for self-appointed advocates for women to feel oppressed on their behalf. They must have missed the growing literature on “The End of Men” and similar themes. Women earn about 60 percent of bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and are reaching parity with men in medical and law schools. Their attitudes to work are changing. In a historic reversal, more young women ages 18 to 34 (66 percent) than young men (59 percent) say high-paying work is one of the most important things or very important, according to a new Pew survey.
In light of all this, it stands to reason that the wage gap will narrow, even if it doesn’t disappear. A study by a research organization called Reach Advisors shows that single women in their 20s make 105 percent of what single men in their 20s make in urban areas, and 120 percent “in certain cities with a heavily knowledge-driven employment base.” These women must not realize that they will never make their way in the workplace without Congress somehow acting to ensure “equal pay.”
In the end, the reality doesn’t matter. A bad statistic never dies.
Radio host and author of “Eco-Tyranny: How the Left’s Green Agenda will Dismantle America” Brian Sussman is firing back at Al Gore, repeating his challenge to the former vice president for a debate on the facts and science behind “global warming.”
In a speech at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., Gore, the lifelong politician and author of “An Inconvenient Truth,” stated, “Every single professional scientific society in every field related to earth science or climate science says [global warming] is an urgent problem that requires urgent attention and must be addressed.”
Gore then criticized talk radio hosts who contend there is no sufficient evidence that mankind is a significant cause of climate change.
In an interview with WND, Sussman pointed out that the consensus on global warming is unraveling, with even scientists, engineers and former astronauts at NASA taking the extraordinary step of condemning their own organization for promoting climate change alarmism.
Sussman also noted that the “Climategate” scandal, in which the internal emails of global warming advocates were leaked, has undermined a great deal of the evidence Gore once used to promote his agenda.
The most notable example is the famous “hockey stick” graph used in “An Inconvenient Truth.” The graph shows temperature skyrocketing in recent years, supposedly due to an increase in the amount of greenhouse gases. However, in the Climategate emails, activists bragged about using a “trick” to “hide the decline” in temperature and used unscientific methods to create the graph they wanted.
Sussman believes that Gore continues to defend climate change alarmism out of a mixture of extreme ideology and personal interest. Both of these motivations derive from Gore’s mysterious family history.
In “Eco-Tyranny,” Sussman recounts that Gore received his start in politics because of his father, who was an influential member of the House and later the Senate from Tennessee. Albert Gore Sr. also was a close friend of American business tycoon Armand Hammer, who was known for his close ties to the Soviet Union. Armand Hammer was the son of Julius Hammer, an abortionist and one of the leaders of the Communist Party USA.
Armand Hammer used his father’s relationship with the Soviets to create business partnerships with the communist regime, including in mining operations, the manufacturing of heavy equipment and the production of pencils for Stalinist Russia. He was also one of the rare foreign recipients of the Order of Lenin.
Hammer became CEO of Occidental Petroleum and a wealthy investor in many other enterprises, including an Angus cattle-breeding company. Hammer made then-Sen. Al Gore Sr. a partner, netting the influential Tennessean a substantial profit.
In return, Gore Sr. allowed the Order of Lenin winner to undertake business for the U.S. government.
In another example of gifts between the good friends, Hammer allowed Sen. Gore to buy into a below-market land sale in Tennessee that included mineral rights to a zinc mine on the property. Later, this mineral extraction business would be deeded to Sen. Gore’s son – Al Gore Jr.
When Gore Jr. began his political rise, Hammer and Occidental Petroleum were key contributors. The Gores also used Hammer’s private jet for various trips. Gore Jr. also gave a speech to the left-leaning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War when Hammer received an award from the group in Moscow.
“The combination of far-left ideology and fantastic wealth and power is familiar to Al Gore Jr., just as it was to his father,” said Sussman. “Even liberal media sources have reported that Al Gore stands to personally benefit to the tune of millions of dollars if the federal government implements his preferred policies on carbon trading and regulating emissions.
“In ‘Eco-Tyranny,’ I argue that the environmental movement is about control, not about the environment. With Al Gore though, it’s not just about fulfilling his socialist agenda – it’s about privatizing vast profits for his own benefit.”
Sussman also points out the hypocrisy of Gore advocating for limits on carbon emissions for other Americans while enjoying a luxurious lifestyle.
“We talk about limousine liberals – but Al Gore takes it to a whole new level. Forget the huge amount of carbon emissions he generates jet setting around the world to push his regulations. In 2006, Al Gore paid almost $30,000 in electricity and natural gas bills to power his Tennessee estate for just one year. That’s more than 20 times what a typical household in America uses.”
“With this kind of a record and ever-increasing criticism, it’s no wonder Al Gore wants to change the subject and blame his problems on talk radio. Talk radio is about free debate and discussion, and Al Gore wants to use his powerful friends to impose austerity on the American people – and make money in the meantime.”
The meteorologist concludes: “Al Gore is simply wrong on the science – and if he wants to challenge me, I’ll meet him anytime and anyplace to discuss the real truth about climate change and the real motivations of the environmental movement.”
