by LauraLoo
It’s time for all Stevie Nicks/Fleetwood Mac fans to get back in the mosh pit!
As requested by Ninek last time I posted Stevie, here’s one of Fleetwood Mac’s most unique sounding songs, Tusk. They are featured on a 1980 episode of Solid Gold interspersed with the USC Trojan Marching Band.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Duv66-jnfi8[/youtube]
As usual, Stevie is gorgeous – and quite the baton twirler!
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[O]f the two-fifths of bottom-quintile households that are families, 83% are headed by single mothers. The Brookings Institution’s Isabel Sawhill calculates that virtually all the increase in child poverty in the United States since the 1970s would vanish if parents still married at 1970 rates.
Well, comes the response, maybe single mothers are hard up not because they lack husbands but because unskilled, low-earning women are likelier to become single mothers in the first place. The Urban Institute’s Robert Lerman tried to address that objection by studying low-income women who had entered “shotgun” unions — that is, getting married after getting pregnant — on the theory that they represented a population roughly similar to those who got pregnant but didn’t marry. The married women, he found, had a significantly higher standard of living than the unmarried ones.
“Even among the mothers with the least qualifications and highest risks of poverty,” Lerman concluded, “marriage effects are consistently large and statistically significant.”
~ Kay S. Hymowitz, Los Angeles Times, June 3
[Photo via urbanmoms.ca]
President Barack Obama sees a villain underneath every corporate rock except the one beneath which the abortion industry hides. It is inconceivable to Obama that abortion doctors might have a profit motive that tempts nefarious activity. In Obama’s mind, the abortion industry is the only corporate entity that should be completely unregulated.
The White House’s May 30 statement in opposition to a ban against sex selective abortions not only misrepresented the bill, which specifically exempts an abortionist from affirmatively determining a mother’s motive for abortion, it gave abortionists carte blanche:
The Administration opposes gender discrimination in all forms, but the end result of this legislation would be to subject doctors to criminal prosecution if they fail to determine the motivations behind a very personal and private decision. The government should not intrude in medical decisions or private family matters in this way.
This verbiage also sounded familiar. It is. In 2002, when then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama was arguing against a bill that would have forced abortionists to call an independent second physician to assess abortion survivors for viability, he said:
[O]ne of the things that we were concerned about, or at least I expressed some concern about, was what impact this would have with respect to the relationship between the doctor and the patient and what liabilities the doctor might have in this situation…
[A]n additional doctor who then has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make thee assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion….
Because if these are children who are being born alive, I, at least, have confidence that a doctor who is in that room is going to make sure that they’re looked after.
If Barack Obama thinks assessing live aborted babies for viability interferes with the doctor-patient relationship, it should come as no surprise that he would not want to interfere with sex-selective abortions, or any abortion.
Big Abortion is the one big business in which Obama has complete trust. Pretty scary.
Politico reported yesterday that former Utah governor and Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt “is the most important figure in Mitt Romney’s campaign you may have never heard of,” adding Leavitt “has been tapped to head Romney’s transition process” and is being buzzed about by insider Republicans as Romney’s potential chief-of-staff.
My eyes lit up when seeing Leavitt’s name. Leavitt gave me the best birthday present ever when on April 22, 2005, as President George W. Bush’s HHS secretary, he issued a memo ordering that the Born Alive Infants Protection Act be “aggressively enforce[d]”:
The Act reaffirms the legal principle that all infants born alive are entitled to the full protection of the law. That is a principle I will vigorously uphold as Secretary. As a matter of law and policy, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will investigate all circumstances where individuals and entities are reported to be withholding medical care from an infant born alive in potential violation of federal statutes for which we are responsible. We will also take proactive steps to educate state officials, health care providers, hospitals and child protection agencies about their obligations to born-alive infants under federal law.
We took the first of these educational steps today by notifying relevant entities that we aggressively enforce federal laws that protect born-alive infants….
Ours is a society that values and defends life. The Department of Health and Human Services will continue to seek ways to revere and protect the dignity of life.
What good news it is that Leavitt is already one of Romney’s top advisors.
Reading Leavitt’s memo also reminded me how dark and deadly the position of HHS secretary has become.
[Photo via the Associated Press]
Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program on May 30 to tout her group’s new anti-Romney ad. But the conversation veered onto other interesting topics, as I wrote in my previous post.
One of those topics was the May 31 Gallup poll that found the number of Americans considering themselves “pro-choice” at a record low of 41%.
Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski broached that topic with Richards and got this eye-rolling response:
Brzezinski: Were you surprised to hear those numbers?
Richards: Actually, it’s a great question, Mika. It’s the language “pro-choice” and “pro-life” that I think – and actually I think that’s something, too, Joe, we could probably all agree on – is totally irrelevant in this country. Everyone in this country – the vast majority of people in this country – agree on one basic thing, which is: Abortion is a very personal issue. Women should be able to make decisions about their pregnancy without government getting involved. And I agree, I totally understand that this is an issue that people have very strong feelings about, but what I think we do agree as Americans is we don’t want the government making very important personal decisions for women and their families.
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No, we do not all agree terminology is “irrelevant.” Of course Cecile would laugh at her own spin had the poll gone the other way.
And of course everyone in this country believes abortion is a “very personal issue.” Big whoop. What gobbledygook.
But whether self-labeling on the abortion issue is relevant or not, researcher Michael New at National Review Online made this observation:
Contrary to the mainstream-media spin, the results of the Gallup survey are important, for several reasons. The fact that a higher percentage of Americans identify as pro-life likely means more people are comfortable voting for pro-life candidates or supporting pro-life legislation. It also shows that pro-life movement’s reputation is improving. At one point, many Americans who opposed abortion may have been uncomfortable describing themselves as “pro-life.” These people may have been reluctant to identify with a cause that was often marginalized. They also may have linked the mainstream pro-life movement to abortion-clinic violence. As such, the fact that more Americans are comfortable with the “pro-life” label is a reason for optimism.
Suffice to say in the heat of the moment, we hoped the rhythm method would work. Two weeks later I was pregnant. I would say “we” were pregnant, but it really was only me. I was and am still pro-choice. I knew I had options. I considered them all, including marriage, which this young man sweetly offered. But I never had to make a choice, because… I began to miscarry. I was surprised at the sense of loss I felt for this unwanted pregnancy, but was also grateful to be spared making a choice that might haunt me the rest of my days.
I think “abstinence only” flies in the face of nature and the biological imperative. People who choose abstinence as a self-protective measure have my admiration, because I was incapable of doing so. But making abstinence a moral imperative just breeds shame, self-loathing and, more often than not, failure to live up to the ideal.
When I was 36 and 38 I gave birth to my two beautiful daughters. They came at just the right time, with exactly the right partner, my husband Henry. That wouldn’t have been possible without birth control. I hope both of my daughters will wait until a ripe old age (35?) before they engage in sexual activity and I hope they will only give themselves to men who cherish them, but when they’re in high school I’ll be taking them to Planned Parenthood. No shame. No blame. Knowledge is power.
~ Shannon Bradley-Colleary, The Huffington Post, May 31
[Photo via USF Healthy Bulls]
by LauraLoo
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDEe4XexzHk&feature=related[/youtube]
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On May 30 Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to tout her group’s launch that day of an anti-Romney ad campaign.
This was the day after Live Action released its first investigative video of a new series, which exposed Planned Parenthood as a facilitator of sex-selection abortion.
The Live Action videos were not mentioned during the Morning Joe segment, so either they were ignored or Richards stipulated she would only come on if they weren’t brought up.
Nevertheless, (somewhat) conservative host Joe Scarborough got in several digs against the abortion giant.
Richards looked tense during the interview, and “frankly” (one of her favorite words) haggard. Her voice, although typically husky, sounded hoarse. She must have done lots of talking (yelling?) the day before. Certainly Richards wasn’t the bubbly persona we recently saw on Jon Stewart’s show.
Scarborough fired his first salvo beginning at 1:24 on the video:
Scarborough: So, you keep throwing out cancer screenings. Obviously, Planned Parenthood got on the front page of all the papers when one of the largest – actually, the largest, I guess – breast cancer prevention organization decided they didn’t want to be involved with Planned Parenthood anymore. Do they not have a right to try to disengage from a very controversial issue?
Richards: Well, I actually think the Komen Foundation, which, of course, is working with us again, and we’re really grateful for that partnership –
Scarborough: Well, they really had no choice, did they?
Richards: Well, I mean, they made that decision, and I think, honestly, we do the same work….
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Loved that.
Richards then knocked out several talking points, and then Scarborough pushed again, beginning at 2:38. Note the underlined sections below were not included in MSNBC’s written recap of the interview, nor was the entire Komen conversation:
Scarborough: Do you understand why some Americans… would not want their tax dollars going to an organization that provides abortion services to probably any other organization on the planet? Just as a matter of morality. If somebody thinks that abortion is murder, they don’t want their tax dollars going – they’re just like I’m sure other Americans wouldn’t want their tax dollars going to the NRA or to pro-life groups.
Richards: Well, of course, tax dollars do go to pro-life groups. But in any case, the important thing here is Planned Parenthood, again, we provide health care to one in five women in America. The vast majority of our healthcare services are preventive health care. And two things you need to know, Joe. One is, actually, all of the money that Mr. Romney wants to get rid of, not only for Planned Parenthood but for all other women’s healthcare providers, is for preventative care, is for basically family planning. And I think most of the people around this table would agree the #1 reason –
Scarborough: Well, do you call abortions preventative care? What’s your definition of preventative care?
Richards: No. More than 90% of our services are cancer screenings, birth control services, well-women checkups….
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There were more good soundbites in the interview, such as when Richards claimed “Planned Parenthood was started by Republicans all across the country.” No, Planned Parenthood was started by socialist, racist, eugenicist Margaret Sanger.
I’ll address a laugher in my next post.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
