CNN's Brooke Baldwin on Wednesday's Newsroom highlighted Lila Rose and Live Action Film's most recent hidden camera video showing Planned Parenthood aiding and abetting the covering up of sex crimes, unlike the morning and evening news shows of ABC, CBS, and NBC. Baldwin interviewed Rose and a spokesman from the abortion-providing organization, asking both fair questions about the controversy [audio clips from interviews available here ]. The anchor had the young pro-life activist on first just after the bottom of the 3 pm Eastern hour. Midway through the interview, Baldwin pressed Rose about the motivation for her undercover videos: [ Video embedded below the page break ] BALDWIN: … Lila, let me just get to this point, which I think is, ultimately, your, perhaps, motivation behind these videos on exposing Planned Parenthood in the way that you are. What is the end game for you? ROSE: The end game is protecting young girls across the country from an abuse cover-up that goes on at these clinics. And to set the record straight, Planned Parenthood fired their employee yesterday, the same one that they claimed- although we haven't seen evidence of the claims- the same one that they claimed reported the incident. It's very clear. Watch the footage for yourself and see it for yourself. It's very clear that this manager is intent on giving the pimp and the abusers advice on how the girls can do sexual acts. She's working to fudge the paperwork. They are aiding and abetting this abuser, and Planned Parenthood- even though they're claiming they reported it- went ahead and fired their employee yesterday. So it's clear that there's a lot of abuse cover-up going on, and you can look at the videos over the past three years, that show this again and again….. Near the end of this first interview, after she played a clip from Rose's video, the CNN personality read excerpts from the national Planned Parenthood organization's statement and showed a bit of bias in her question: BALDWIN: Lila, here's- here is what Planned Parenthood says. They say a lot, but here's just one snippet from their statement, and they say- quote, 'The group that has undertaken the secret taping is on the record as saying its goal is to take down Planned Parenthood over the next 10 years.' They go on to say, 'By creating controversy in the organization and making Planned Parenthood not feel safe.' Do you, Lila, have this myopic agenda to take down this federally-funded group, and do you think you'll be successful? ROSE: First of all, Brooke, you can read our mission. We state it clearly on our website. Our goal is to expose the abuse cover-up, the corruption, the illicit activity going on every day in abortion clinics- Planned Parenthood clinics- across the country that are being tax funded, and we believe strongly that the American people are sick of this. These clinics will be defunded and they need to be held accountable, to protect young girls and to protect women. Baldwin then interviewed Stuart Schear, Planned Parenthood's vice president of communications, after taking a commercial break. She first played a second clip from Rose's secret video, and when Schear repeatedly mouthed his talking points, she interrupted and pressed the spokesman to answer her questions: SCHEAR: …One last point, which is that the organization that is coming in and secretly taping within Planned Parenthood health centers- they are not concerned about women and they're not concerned about abused young girls. They have a very extreme political agenda, which is to outlaw abortion for all women in the United States, and to take the constitutional right away, and they are working with other groups to make sure that federal funds, which Planned Parenthood receives for birth control, for family planning, for cancer screenings, and preventative care, are taken away , and the American people do not want health care taken away- BALDWIN: Let me bring this back on point, sir, if I can, just speaking to the video and really the issue at hand that we see in these 11 minutes. Is this woman, who you said you fired yesterday- is she a rogue employee, or is this indicative of a more systemic problem? SCHEAR: Well, she's not- no, it's not indicative of a systemic problem. She's not an employee of Planned Parenthood. She was fired – BALDWIN: She was . SCHEAR: She was fired yesterday. Yesterday, she was fired, and, most importantly, is two weeks before, when Lila Rose and her team started coming to our health centers, lying that they were a pimp and a prostitute and looking for advice, we started to hear from our staff that there were- was a patient coming in who was saying that he was part of a sex ring. They reported to their superiors what was going on. We called the local prosecutor in New Jersey to report it immediately. We wrote a letter to the attorney general, which we've made public and anyone can read- BALDWIN: Right. I understand you've reached out- SCHEAR: To report our concerns. But I really want to come back to the point. Lila Rose was saying that we do not report. The fact is we report it to the highest authorities in the land. BALDWIN: And she also mentioned not just this particular- we'll call it a sting- but, you know, she admitted though to being behind several others- I think it's 12 in total- and so, I guess my question to you is, are other employees part of these other stings that I haven't seen any video of, but have they been fired? SCHEAR: This is the only videotape that Live Action has released from their current taping. The main point is that Live Action is an extreme political group. Their goal is to take away health care from women, to end legal abortion in the United States. They're targeting Planned Parenthood. They are not concerned about our patients . What I would like to say is- BALDWIN: But sir, let's bring it- let's bring this back to the point because the question and the reason why we wanted you on was to talk about Planned Parenthood, and a lot of people- a lot of women watching this video think- hang on a second. This- you know, this group and these clinics nationwide must have rules- must have policies in place to ensure this kind of behavior does not happen and- my question to you, Stuart, is, how are those policies enforced, and with 10,000 employees, is it even possible to check each and every person? SCHEAR: Well, first of all, our employees got- get a very serious message. When someone does not comply with our high standards of care, there's zero tolerance and they're fired. That's as clear a message as you can deliver. Planned Parenthood's staff are highly trained. We have highly-trained physicians, nurses, and other health professionals, and when any one of our staff doesn't meet our high standards, they are terminated. BALDWIN: And you- SCHEAR: That's what you saw happened yesterday. That is what we did. BALDWIN: Right- and that's what happened yesterday. Given though what happened yesterday and given what we see in these 11 minutes, would this change, at all, how you train your employees on the front end? SCHEAR: First of all, we offer excellent training to our staff, and two, there's no training that could prevent this from happening. This was a complete breakdown in judgment. We don't understand what happened with this employee, but her behavior was completely not in keeping with how we handle health care, and she was terminated. NewsBusters's Ken Shepherd noted earlier on Wednesday that ABC, CBS, and NBC omitted covering the undercover video on their February 1 evening news shows, and did the same on their morning shows the following day.
Continue reading …Judge Vinson has gotten Conservatives all excited with his wingnut decision which overturns the entire health care bill. You see, loading up the courts with ideologues has paid off for Republicans, but today they were dealt a blow when Charles Fried slapped down the Vinson ruling by saying the mandate is constitutional . mcjoan: I am quite sure that the health care mandate is constitutional . … My authorities are not recent. They go back to John Marshall, who sat in the Virginia legislature at the time they ratified the Constitution, and who, in 1824, in Gibbons v. Ogden , said, regarding Congress’ Commerce power, “what is this power? It is the power to regulate. That is—to proscribe the rule by which commerce is governed.” To my mind, that is the end of the story of the constitutional basis for the mandate. The mandate is a rule—more accurately, “part of a system of rules by which commerce is to be governed,” to quote Chief Justice Marshall. And if that weren’t enough for you—though it is enough for me—you go back to Marshall in 1819, in McCulloch v. Maryland , where he said “the powers given to the government imply the ordinary means of execution. The government which has the right to do an act”—surely, to regulate health insurance—“and has imposed on it the duty of performing that act, must, according to the dictates of reason, be allowed to select the means.” And that is the Necessary and Proper Clause. I think that one thing about Judge Vinson’s opinion, where he said that if we strike down the mandate everything else goes, shows as well as anything could that the mandate is necessary to the accomplishment of the regulation of health insurance. Fried also pointed out that the law would have most definitely been constitutional if it included a public option. FRIED: As I recall, the great debate in the Senate was between this device and something called the public option. And the government option was described as being something akin to socialism and I think there is a bit of a point to that. But what is striking Senator is that I don’t think anybody in the world can argue that the government option or a single payer federal alternative would have been unconstitutional. Indeed. In fact, plenty of people would be happy to see the mandate, constitutional as it might be, replaced by a public option which has the additional benefit of being exceedingly cost effective. Some Democrats are apparently exploring alternatives to the mandate. Maybe what they should be looking at is a constitutional expansion of public health systems. Well, well, well. A Reagan Conservative is throwing water on their fire. He’ll be vilified soon enough by the usual parties, including the WSJ. This is ultimately going to play out in the Supreme Court where Justice Kennedy now is the deciding vote. Can’t you just wait?
Continue reading …Leave Egypt alone, pleads Simon Jenkins ( Comment , 2 February). We should not only avoid any military aid/intervention, however; we should also stop preaching. Twenty-five years ago, the good news was from Russia. Unfortunately, the forces of reform quickly split into two, and the debate descended into a clash between two Nobel laureates, Gorbachev and Sakharov – a battle which, from the longer-term perspective, both lost. Why, then, this confrontation? To a large extent, it was because, both in London and Washington, we blundered, we gave the wrong advice. So the Russians chose to use our western interpretation of democracy. It was thus all win-or-lose in a single-preference electoral system; and win-or-lose again in an even more Orwellian decision-making process: the simple, for-or-against, majority vote. So back to Egypt. Many observers fear a takeover by one or other extremist group. The danger, therefore, is that, we might blunder again, and that Cairo might adopt an adversarial democratic structure which would allow for such an outcome. The wiser approach would be for the Egyptians to ignore any majoritarian model and to opt, instead, for a government of national unity. Decisions could then be based not on the majority’s more preferred policy from a choice of two options but, from a much wider selection, on the most popular option of every member in parliament. In a modern, plural society, concepts like majority rule and minority veto should really be obsolescent. Peter Emerson Director, The de Borda Institute Egypt Hosni Mubarak Foreign policy guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Prime minister’s questions is supposed to be fun – not an earnest, gentlemanly debate about Egypt or Afghanistan It was a shocking experience – the first nice prime minister’s questions I can recall. This was a huge disappointment for everyone in the public, press and peers’ gallery and for MPs themselves. Imagine that at the start of tomorrow night’s rugby match between Wales and England in Cardiff, before tens of thousands of excitedfans, there was a PA announcement on these lines: “Ladies and gentlemen, after long consideration and consultation, the Rugby Football Union has decided that having 30 grown men on a field kicking lumps out of each other, attempting to cripple their opponents on a permanent basis, and gouging people’s eyes out, is extremely dangerous and against every health and safety regulation the most crazed bureaucrat could dream up. For this reason, the result of tonight’s game will be decided by a debate between the teams, which you are welcome to listen to, if you wish. There will be no refunds. Thank you.” The place would go berserk. Cries of “Oh, I say, steady on!” would echo round the stands. Barbour jackets would be waved in anger. Hipflasks would rain upon the pitch. Likewise the Commons almost went mad this afternoon. The whole session – or at least the mini-debate between the PM and the Labour leader, which is the only part that counts – was conducted in a manner as calm and emollient as the weekend singalong at an old folks’ home. This is how bad it got. While David Cameron spoke, MPs were talking among themselves. Not barracking, not trying to score points, but chatting to each other because their private conversations were more interesting than anything he might be saying. All public speakers know, and dread, that experience. For a prime minister it is unheard of. I know people will argue that a serious question time is long overdue. Lines such as “I am most grateful for that reply”, “the whole House will be pleased by the prime minister’s answer, and share the view he has expressed,” and “I entirely agree”, which we heard today, are, we are told, what the public wants to hear. They want the kind of thoughtful discussions on Egypt and Afghanistan which we had yesterday. I wonder. Certainly Messrs Cameron and Miliband seemed very pleased with their own gentlemanliness. As the sound of MPs chuntering on about anything except Egypt and Afghanistan rumbled round them the Labour leader mused, “I sense that people are not used to this kind of prime minister’s questions.” Cameron agreed. “From the noises off, it is clear that people would prefer a bunfight, but sometimes it is sensible to have a serious conversation …” Yes, I thought, and you can have that in private any time you like. But PMQs is our weekly fun. Don’t spoil it. (I think he meant “food fight” or a “bear pit”. A bunfight is a tea party.) And, by the way, the bald patch was invisible for most of the session, but towards the end it peeped coyly out, just above and to one side of his right ear. David Cameron Ed Miliband Egypt Afghanistan Simon Hoggart guardian.co.uk
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The regime appears determined to regain control after a week of near anarchy, but is help at hand? Steve Bell
Continue reading …Heritage Foundation to Darrell Issa: Dump Health Care, Financial and Environmental Regulations
February 2, 2011 No CommentDarrell Issa recently decided to outsource his oversight duties to think tanks, industry organizations and lobbyists. He has requested their input into what they hate about government oversight and promises to have a report soon. In the meantime, CREW has done a great job of rounding up responses sent to him. Really, he should have just written to the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute, because they cover all the bases. To be concise, they want all EPA regulatory responsibility ended, a complete rollback of patient rights under the PPACA (including a reinstatement of the right to exclude for pre-existing conditions), a complete rollback of Wall Street regulation, an end to credit card regulatory reforms, and more. Really, I could have written their letter in one page, instead of ten. It would go like this: Dear Rep. Issa, Thank you for the opportunity to submit ideas on what government policies hinder job creation. No doubt there are specific policies we could look at more carefully, but suffice it to say that all legislation passed in the last two years should be repealed. Then maybe our largest donors would consider hiring employees again, for substandard wages and without any health coverage or other benefits. We could do this and pay them just enough to stimulate the economy so that our Wall Street friends can recapture what we spend in the form of another market crash. Sincerely, Heritage Foundation I’ve embedded their actual 10-page response below. Heritage Foundation Letter to Chairman Issa – January 11, 2011
Continue reading …How bit.ly data shows the unrest in Egypt – and the internet shutdown | Strata conference 2011
February 2, 2011 No Comment
bit.ly data scientist Hilary Mason explains how the unrest in Egypt – and the shutdown of the country’s internet – are reflected in the site’s statistics The unrest in Egypt – and the shutdown in the country’s internet activity – is reflected instantly in our data from the country. You can see what happened here at the end of January: The first graph shows clicks from Egypt on bit.ly links. It’s a simple line plot with each point indicating cumulative clicks per hour, and you can see the precipitous drop-off – from around 20,000 per hour to almost zero – when the majority of Egyptian ISPs shut down and a smaller drop-off just before February 1st when Noor, the last operating ISP, shut down. Finally, we see that connections have been restored and in the last few hours traffic has returned to almost normal levels. The second graph show clicks from anywhere in the world on URLs that contain content related to Egypt. It’s in UTC and not normalised by timezone, which shows that people around the world have consistently been interested in the topic over the last week. Interestingly, these results are reflected too in Arbor’s statistics from Egypt which measured activity across 80 networks . More data Data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian World government data • Search the world’s government data with our gateway Development and aid data • Search the world’s global development data with our gateway Can you do something with this data? • Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group • Contact us at data@guardian.co.uk • Get the A-Z of data • More at the Datastore directory • Follow us on Twitter Egypt Internet guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Susie wrote about this Monday and Ed Schultz did a nice job of walking the viewers through how the hedge fund managers on Wall Street did their part in contributing to the riots we’re seeing in Egypt and across much of Africa by contributing to the severe spikes on the cost of food. Here’s Susie’s post if you missed it — The Era Of Cheap Food Is Coming To An End. Blame Wall Street Hedge Funds. . And here’s more from Democracy Now — The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It . It’s a shame it takes the kind of turmoil we’re seeing in Egypt and Tunisia and the possibility of the entire Middle East blowing up in protest for our corporate media here in the United States do finally be doing some of the reporting normally reserved for shows like Democracy Now or networks like Al Jazeera.
Continue reading …Few now remember that 1979 and 1980 were the nation’s worst economic years since the Great Depression. Reagan saved America from Jimmy Carter economics: he brought inflation down from 13.5 to 4.1 percent; unemployment, from 9.5 to 5.2 percent; the federal discount rate, from 14 to 6.5 percent. Under Reagan, the number of jobs increased by almost 20 million; median family income rose every year from 1982 to 1989. It was the greatest peacetime expansion in American history. Charitable giving more than doubled, to more than $100 billion in 1988. But the media elite’s first drafts of history ignored the good news and highlighted the bad news. In a study of almost 14,000 network stories on the economy during three one-year time periods – July 1 to June 30 in 1982-83, 1984-85, and 1986-87—Virginia Commonwealth University professor Ted J. Smith III found that as the economy improved, the amount of network TV coverage shrunk and grew more negative in tone. The ratio of negative to positive stories aggressively increased even as economic indicators improved, from 4.9 to 1 in 1982-83 to 7.0 to 1 in 1986-87. When an economic indicator grew better, the networks began covering it less so they could focus more on unhealthy economic signs. For instance, as the unemployment rate fell from 10.6 percent to well under 6 percent by 1987, the number of stories on employment plunged by 79 percent while reports on the growing trade deficit soared 65 percent and stories on the homeless jumped by 167 percent. The media had a theory to prove: Reaganomics was a dramatic failure.
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On Tuesday's “Daily Show,” liberal comedian Jon Stewart flashed a smirk and wondered why the conservative base of the Republican Party is “so easily ignitable.” The comedian hosted former Republican Party chair Michael Steele, who recounted the story of how he had to go about “re-igniting our base” after the party lost the White House and fell further into the minority in Congress in 2008. “Why is it so easy to ignite your base?” Stewart asked with a smile. Amidst laughter from the audience, Michael Steele played along and quipped “they're an excitable bunch.” Stewart kept at it. “They are so flammable, your base,” he remarked, and added “so easily ignitable.” The remarks seem to echo Stewart's calls for civility in discourse, where he has focused much of his invective toward what he feels to be inflammatory political rhetoric. Earlier in the show, Stewart mocked “political hypochondriacs” on the Right who fear America will suffer the destructive fates of certain European and African countries; Stewart then lampooned Leftists who try to “cheer the hypochondriac up” by wishing America was in fact like certain European or Asian countries.
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