by Jill

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: Andy Moore on Facebook]

What happened, via The Atlantic:

On Twitter Tuesday night, political operatives and journalists [in D.C. and surrounding area] reported receiving spam texts attacking President Obama. The texts come not from phone numbers but from email addresses, most with mysterious domains: sms@gopmessage.com, sms@votegopett.com, sms@voteett.com. According to Whois.com… those domains were all registered in February, but the registrant’s name is blocked.

Was it legal? Yes, although perhaps not free to the recipient, according to Huffington Post:

The FCC bans unsolicited text messages, but political operatives use a loophole of sending emails to people’s phones. But phone companies interpret them as text messages, and send them along. They also charge the recipient for the unwanted messages if the receiver does not have a text messaging plan.

The messages were all written from a conservative perspective. Here were those on the pro-life issue:

• “Obama denies protection to babies who survive abortions. Obama is just wrong.”
• “ObamaCare funds pro-choice entities like Planned Parenthood. Choose to stop Obama!”
• “Obama is using your tax dollars to fund Planned Parenthood and abortion. Is that right?”
• “Obama believes killing children is a right until the umbilical cord is cut.”

That last text is actually inaccurate. Obama believes mothers have the right to terminate the lives of their children afterthe umbilical cord is cut.

Other messages touched on Obama’s support of homosexual marriage and on raiding Medicare.

I’m not condoning the scheme, but I do think liberal responses were a bit overreactionary….

Click to enlarge…

[HT: friend Jacki on Facebook]

President Obama has been a champion for women’s health and a steadfast ally for Planned Parenthood. Now we’re standing with him. Watch the “Yes We Plan” video starring Mary J. Blige, Julianne Moore, Q-Tip, and other Planned Parenthood Action Fund friends — and then make a promise to vote for President Obama and other pro-women’s health candidates.

Yes We Plan.

~ Planned Parenthood Action Fund promoting its latest pro-Obama/pro-choice ad as reported by The Hill, October 30

The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform announced today it will fly 50′ x 100′ aerial billboards displaying photographs of first trimester, ten-week-old aborted babies over Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh, Racine and Waukesha, Wisconsin, from November 2 through Election Day, November 6:

The flights are part of CBR’s Key States Initiative.  From the press release:

Our goal is to make certain that abortion does not become the forgotten issue in an election campaign dominated by economic concerns.  We intend to force a debate and ensure that that debate is well informed.

Parents of young children may complain about these images but the news media routinely publishes and broadcasts disturbing news imagery from which few children can be totally shielded.  CBR is publically displaying abortion imagery precisely because news organizations suppress such photos and video.  We reject this double standard.

For example (click to enlarge)…

by Kelli

We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.

• Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life dismantles the arguments we often hear from pro-lifers who are planning to vote for pro-choice candidates in the election.
• At Live Action, Nancy Flanders makes the case that society has failed both the victims of rape and their preborn children.
• At National Review, Michael New says pro-choice advocates like Amanda Marcotte are fuming at pro-lifers’ refusal to blindly accept the recent Obstetrics and Gynecology study which claims free contraception reduces pregnancies and abortions. New lists even more reasons why we should be skeptical of the study’s methodology.

• Abby Johnson stresses the need for greater unity in the pro-life movement, contrasting it to the unity she felt among supporters of abortion when she worked for Planned Parenthood.
• At Moral Outcry, Danica Keeton writes about how a fellow Christian friend’s passion for the plight of the unborn helped to awaken her from her apathy about abortion.
• At Americans United for Life, Mary Harned writes on the “silver lining” to be found in the Seventh Circuit Court’s decision to block an Indiana law which attempted to defund Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.
• Albert Mohler comments on the controversy over candidate Richard Mourdock’s statements on children conceived as a result of rape, and adds that pro-lifers should support incremental abortion restrictions while continuing to fight for the full protection of all preborn children.
• At the LTI Blog, Serge takes on the pro-choice bodily autonomy argument:
  

  If a pregnancy is considered a state of health for the child and mother, it seems the provision of pregnancy would be obligatory. “Continuing a pregnancy” would be amenable to continuing to provide what is otherwise necessary (nutrients, oxygen, a safe environment) to support the child’s good health. If pregnancy is a disease state for mother and/or child, then the child has no right to demand the continued use of the mother’s body, and withdrawing such support through abortion would be legally permissible and consistent with other optional parental provisions.

  Clearly, the status of the vast majority of pregnancies is one of complete health for mother and child. In fact, the consequences of considering pregnancy a pathological state would be widespread and disastrous…. For this reason, the bodily autonomy argument fails to convince us that the parental provision of providing what a pregnant mother provides to her child is merely optional.

• Down on the Pharm shares the parody to the latest Obama campaign video about “your first time” voting:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAkdHzpXXo0[/youtube]

[Photo via jasoncrandall.org]

True to their word, pro-life activists in Winter Park, Florida, have sued the city government for passing an ordinance banning home protests.

City commissioners (minus the mayor, who voted to protect free speech) enacted the ban after pro-lifers picketed the home of Jenna Tosh, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Orlando, on August 18.

The ban prohibits protests within 50 feet of any home.

Coincidentally, Jenna is sister-in-law to Comedy Central’s Daniel Tosh.

Plaintiffs Winnifred Bell, Allura Lightfoot, and Deanna Waller filed a motion for a temporary restraining order as the merits of their case are debated in court, but that motion was denied.

Recall even the liberal Orlando Sentinel came out against this ordinance as “abridging… free-speech rights.”

Mayor Kenneth Bradley stated on the record he thought the ordinance would be found unconstitutional, to which City Council Commissioner Tom McMacken (pictured left) dimly responded, “I have sworn to uphold the Constitution, but … if it was constitutional or unconstitutional, I would still do it.”

City Attorney Larry Brown explained the city’s side to a reporter from Winter Park Voice, noting plaintiffs had filed for recovery of attorney fees and damages…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh_Dwnp_2vU[/youtube]

The city is hinging its defense on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1988 Frisby v. Schultz decision, which upheld a Brookfield, Wisconsin, ordinance banning home protests. The current lawsuit maintains:

Although the Code claims to be in conformance with Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 7 474 (1988), it misinterprets the essential holdings of the case. The Frisby Court held an Code “forbid[ding] all picketing in residential neighborhoods [would violate] the overbreadth doctrine [and] would render it unconstitutional on its face.”(White, J., concurring).

Second, the City’s Code defines a “picket” as “any assembly of one or more persons ….” (emphasis supplied). In Burk v. Augusta-Richmond County, 365 F. 3d 1247, 1255 n.13 (11th Cir. 2004), the Eleventh Circuit cited with approval the small group exceptions of many other circuits when it noted a law requiring permits for groups of only five people is not narrowly tailored.

Stay tuned.

by Hans Johnson

Aging baby boomers and the implementation of the Affordable Care Act will combine to cause a doctor shortage, which will eventually lead to rationed health care. This video from National Right to Life notes that the latter event is still ours to change this November 6:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCTN_QqYPU4[/youtube]

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: Jill]