Most everyone knows by now the Supreme Court ruled in favor of religious freedom and against the Obama administration yesterday in its Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood decisions.

This was a stunning rebuke against not only President Obama but also pro-abortion HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, whose office wrote the rules attempting to force employers with religious convictions to pay for abortion-inducing drugs. The contraception mandate was never passed by Congress.

I love this headline. Even if factually incorrect, it is accurate in the sense that Planned Parenthood stood to gain financially by the mandate and lost in the Hobby Lobby decision as well…

 “Our opponents think they have momentum on their side,” wrote Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards in a fundraising email yesterday, which was for once a true statement. When you consider the buffer zone and Hobby Lobby decisions, the vast number of abortion clinics closing, the horrific Gosnell scandal, the public opinion polls, the tsunami of pro-life laws being passed, and the 2014 political landscape, we do appear to have a bit of momentum.

Meanwhile, the other Supreme Court decision handed down yesterday was a major slam against the company for whom Richards’ husband Kirk Adams (pictured left) works. Adams is the International Executive Vice President of the Service Employees International Union, heading up its North America healthcare division.

Particularly since I’m from Illinois, I was also watching this court case. In Harris v Quinn (as in Illinois Governor Patrick Quinn) the Supreme Court struck down an IL law that forced Medicaid-paid home health care workers who were family members of those being cared for to pay dues to the SEIU. The mandate was originally the quid pro quo brain child of imprisoned former IL Governor Rod Blagojevich.

World Socialist Website explains the back room deal, the likes of which are too common in the Land of Lincoln:

[T]he case is remarkable as a further exposure of the extent to which the unions - in a period of declining popular support and membership - have sought to secure their dues revenue streams by entrenching themselves in the corporate and government superstructure….

Since they cannot rely on popular support, unions are increasingly looking to secure their dues revenue streams by backroom deals with government and corporate officials. It is significant that the IL home health care workers were not unionized in a popular struggle for better wages and working conditions, but by an executive order from Blagojevich.

This executive order was a windfall for the SEIU, which thereby acquired hundreds of thousands of workers who were compelled by law to pay tribute to the union in perpetuity. According to the Supreme Court, the SEIU-HII was raking in over $3.6 million in dues each year from the personal assistants under the deal.

It is worth noting that Blagojevich - who established the Illinois regime for home health care workers - was subsequently convicted on federal corruption charges. Among the charges was that Blagojevich attempted to sell President Obama’s federal Senate seat in return for a job at an SEIU affiliate that paid $300,000 a year. According to the Wall Street Journal, the SEIU contributed about $1.8 million to Blagojevich’s two campaigns for governor, receiving the home health care workers’ yearly tribute in return.

Planned Parenthood’s political correcuptness

There are several correlations between Planned Parenthood and SEIU. Planned Parenthood is also increasingly reliant on the government for revenue. And it, too, gets windfall profits from government officials it helps empower, say, for instance, Barack Obama.

Recall Obama was perfectly willing to shut down the government in 2011 to keep Planned Parenthood on the public dole – to the tune of over $500 million a year.

Additionally, with the help of another Planned Parenthood patron, Sebelius, the Obama administration connived to hand Planned Parenthood millions more, perhaps billions, through Obamacare.

But both Planned Parenthood and the SEIU were blocked yesterday, making for a depressing mood at dinner for Cecile and Kirk, to be sure.

Hope their house staff thought to put away the knives.

by Hans Johnson

The most-played sound bite from President Obama’s speech last week about government-paid parental leave was that we should follow France’s lead. But by injecting himself into the conversation (something he is wont to do), he made some remarks that could be seen as ironic.

He said “one of the best perks about being president is anybody will hand you their baby.” And: “So I get this baby fix two or three times a week.” Pro-lifers, at least, would consider this awkward. But he didn’t stop there.

After recalling his experiences with his infant daughters, he said: “And I want every father and every child to have that opportunity.” Yet as an Illinois state senator he was such a champion of abortion that he supported infanticide. And who can forget his statement that babies can be considered a punishment?

Emaildailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: LauraLoo]

by Kelli

The evening I found out the sex of the baby was when I lit up my first cigarette. I’m not proud of it – but I couldn’t stop myself. It changed everything.

Deep down I know a lot of people are disappointed when they discover the sex of the child. The difference is I’m not scared to admit it.

~ British model Josie Cunningham, who made headlines when she claimed she would abort her child to get on the Big Brother reality TV program, discussing her behavior since learning she is pregnant with another boy (despite a psychic’s prediction that she was having a girl), as quoted by the UK Mirror, June 29

Cunningham has two other sons. The article also notes, “The baby has two possible fathers – one a casual fling, the other a stranger she slept with while working briefly as a £1,000-an-hour escort. Neither looks likely to support her or the baby,” but Cunningham believes her “maternal instincts will kick in” once her baby boy is born.

[HT: Jill; photo via entertainmentwise.com]

The U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous decision last week overturning Massachusetts’ 35-foot abortion clinic buffer zone law, which the court agreed unconstitutionally restricted the pro-life right to free speech, has implications far beyond similarly worded laws and ordinances around the country.

There are also what are called “floating bubble zone” laws, such as in Chicago, where pro-life advocates are restricted from entering an eight-foot imaginary bubble around a pregnant mother who is within 50 feet of an abortion clinic.

And there are home buffer zone free speech restrictions, such as in Winter Park, Florida, where in 2012 the city government enacted a 50-foot buffer zone ordinance banning any protests within 50 feet of a home after pro-life activists held signs in front of the home of Planned Parenthood of Greater Orlando’s CEO Jenna Tosh (pictured left).

Then there are court actions, such as was taken in Columbus, Ohio, in 2013, when a pro-life/anti-homosexual group was banned from protesting along a public road in front of a church where there are no sidewalks.

All of the aforementioned pro-life free speech restrictions are now getting second looks by the attorneys involved.

The Supreme Court opened the door to reanalyze such cases in its McCullen v Coakley decision, according to a constitutional expert on abortion law in an email to me. Here are the ways he believes the McCullen decision aids pro-life activists as well as puts more pressure on clinics:

• It was a unanimous decision, including the most pro-abortion justices.
• It favorably described pro-life sidewalk counselors.
• It proclaimed free speech rights on public sidewalks.
• It pushed back against writing and passing more “speech-free zones.”
• It may limit the scope of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act for the first time since it was enacted. (The holding doesn’t affect FACE legally. However, it appears to reaffirm First Amendment rights on public sidewalks, which were thrown into doubt to some extent by the Hill v Colorado decision in 2000. So it seems to be a “buffer” against applications of FACE by the Obama administration.)
• It may encourage greater boldness of pro-lifers on the sidewalks and public ways by clarifying the law and clarifying their right to be there

A buffer zone by any other name…

Attorney Tom Brejcha of the Thomas More Society, the pro-life legal group that has taken the lead in opposing the Chicago ordinance, wrote me in an email he plans to take action by the end of summer in light of the McCullen decision:

Really, the “bubble” is from my perspective just a buffer zone within the buffer zone, since it creates a 50 foot buffer – very broad even by comparison with the overbroad Massachusetts buffer – within which a pro-lifer is forbidden from “approaching” anybody. As noted Supreme Court blogger Tom Goldstein was quoted, “All buffer zones are now presumptively unconstitutional.”

Winter of pro-life discontent

Likewise, one of the pro-life attorneys working on the Winter Park lawsuit wrote me in an email, “We intend to use the McCullen v Coakley case as it does provide helpful arguments.”

The Winter Park ordinance was half struck down by an 11th Circuit Court panel, but pro-lifers are asking the entire 11th Circuit to review the case and will go on to the Supreme Court, if need be.

[Top photo via Chicago Tribune]

by Kelli

At Secular Talk, radio host Kyle Kulinski (pictured right) gives his take on why he believes pro-lifers are wrong to oppose contraception. To do so, he comments on a panel discussion from the National Right to Life Convention featuring remarks from radio host and pregnancy resource center director Joy Pinto. (Also shown in the clip are NRO editor Kathryn Jean Lopez and Dr. Jean Garton.)

In the course of the video, Kulinski claims that if a person represses their own urge to have sex, “it’s gonna manifest itself in all sorts of weird and screwed up ways” and insists that “it is overwhelming and unanimous that we all agree that contraception is a good thing”, despite the fact that his entire program is dedicated to claiming that religious pro-lifers are wrong on contraception – in other words, it’s obviously not unanimous.

It should really go without saying, but WARNING – Profanity:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/wdOOZwpTjdw[/youtube]

How would you answer Kulinksi’s claims?

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: Robert Berger]

UDPATE 6:20p: Americans United for Life notes:

The Court acknowledged the dangerous and radical view advanced by the Obama Administration: “Under HHS’s view, RFRA would permit the Government to require all employers to provide coverage for any medical procedure allowed by law in the jurisdiction in question—for instance, third-trimester abortions or assisted suicide.  The owners of many closely held corporations could not in good conscience provide such coverage, and thus HHS would effectively exclude these people form full participation in the economic life of the Nation.” (45-46)

UPDATE 5:10p: Ha…

Let us be clear, Imperial Obama: No, you can't! #obstructionismispatriotic pic.twitter.com/OYRycI3bRG

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) June 30, 2014

10:27a: The Supreme Court just ruled 5-4:

Breaking: SCOTUS holds govt can’t require closely held corps w/ religious owners to provide contraception coverage

— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) June 30, 2014

Here’s the Supreme Court’s decision.

[Photo via ABC News]

by Carder

I just walked in with my wife. We’re trying to have another kid, and you know what? One in one hundred thousand fetal demise congenital deformity. So you’re yelling at my wife for doing nothing wrong in having a nearly dead baby inside her? And that’s what you’re gonna do?…

You’re just yelling at random people and you have no idea what you’re doing to them. And you know what? It’s despicable! It is despicable!…

Because of people like you, no one wants to perform these anymore. Because you make people who are already upset on the worst day of their lives feel even worse.

So there’s really not a whole lot of places to go anymore.

~ The Daddy Files author Aaron Gouveia, confronting pro-life activists in front of the abortion facility where his unborn baby, diagnosed with Sirenomelia, was scheduled to be aborted, Time, June 26

View their interview with WBZ TV here.

Tomorrow is a big day. In advance, Hobby Lobby has released this great video. Also read what Hobby Lobby has to say…

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py5Tqglm0dg[/youtube]