Monthly Notes

Briefly Noted: August 2015


bf august 2015

Abortion provider Planned Parenthood was forced to apologize after a video surfaced showing a top official, Deborah Nucatola, callously discussing how to abort a fetus properly in order to preserve marketable organs. “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,” she said in a video secretly recorded last year by the pro-life group, Center for Medical Progress. Planned Parenthood Federation of America president Cecile Richards responded: “Our top priority is the compassionate care that we provide. In the video, one of our staff members speaks in a way that does not reflect that compassion. This is unacceptable, and I personally apologize for the staff member’s tone and statements.” Richards claimed her group does not profit from sales of fetal tissues and organs. “Our donation programs—like any other high-quality health care providers—follow all laws and ethical guidelines.”

The murder of young Kate Steinle by an illegal Mexican alien in San Francisco on July 1 has put the ACLU-led “sanctuary city” movement in the national spotlight. The local sheriff, Ross Mirkarimi, a Democrat and convicted wife beater, had previously refused a request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hold the foreigner for the feds to arrest, because San Francisco refuses to cooperate in the enforcement of federal immigration law. Soon after being liberated, the man shot Steinle in the back at a popular tourist destination in front of her father. Mirkarimi was unmoved, proudly standing by San Francisco’s sanctuary-city status. “I firmly believe it makes us safer. We’re a world-renowned city with a large immigrant population…. From a law enforcement perspective, we want to build trust with that population.” The Obama administration supports this lawless movement. At a congressional hearing two weeks after the shooting, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson refused to condemn sanctuary cities and said a crackdown on them could be unconstitutional.

Extreme left-winger Bill de Blasio, mayor of New York and an ACORN supporter who wears his supposed compassion for the underclass on his sleeve, sicced the cops on a New York Post reporter posing as a homeless man outside his official mayoral mansion. Police gave reporter Kevin Fasick the bum’s rush, removing him from a bench outside the mansion not long after NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton told a presser that the homeless “have every bit as much right … as you or I” to spend time in parks and sit on benches.

In March, former Obama campaign executive Christina Freundlich took a smiling “selfie” photo while making a V-for-victory sign with her fingers as she stood in front of the site of a gas explosion in New York City that killed and injured people and devastated the neighborhood. Freundlich, who previously worked as deputy press secretary at Obama for America and communications director for the Iowa Democratic Party, was attacked for her crass behavior on social media. But that hasn’t stopped the Democratic National Committee from hiring her in July as a spokeswoman. Now she spends her time mocking conservatives on Twitter.

Matthew Vadum

The author of Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers (WND Books, 2011), Vadum, former senior vice president at CRC, writes and speaks widely…
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