April 2013 was a busy month for newly crowned Miss America, Kira Kazantsev.

Just as Kazantsev was completing her three-month stint as an intern at a Planned Parenthood clinic in her home state of New York, she was also being ousted from her sorority for abusive hazing.

Jezebel is reporting today that Kazantsev, who served as Alpha Phi’s head of recruitment at Hofstra University on Long Island, was ejected from her sorority that same month for abusing pledges:

Kazantsev and her best friend (another Alpha Phi sister who was also her roommate), our source says, were exceptionally harsh toward the pledges. (In the tipster’s words, they made the recruits’ lives “a living hell.”) Under Kira’s supervision, according to the source, pledges in the incoming class were called names, berated for their perceived physical flaws and imperfections, and made to perform physical tasks to the point of bruising and exhaustion - standard sorority pledge stuff paid forward by a person who our source says was herself brutally hazed upon entry into Alpha Phi.

Interesting character attributes for a person whose platform is domestic violence, Kazantsev says because she “was stalked and threatened while in an abusive relationship in college.” The abused becomes the abuser while advocating against abuse. Makes no sense.

Although neither does it make sense that Kazantsev’s reason for interning at Planned Parenthood was to “afford[ ] her the opportunity to advocate against child abuse,” which was the pageant’s explanation for her tenure. Another example of the abused becoming the abuser while advocating against abuse.

I see a pattern.

And I wonder what liberal feminists like Amanda Marcotte, who just compared the “demoniz[ation]” of Kazantsev’s connection to Planned Parenthood to ”satanic panic” (soooo Freudian), are going to say now?

[HT: Destiny; photo via the AP]

by Kelli

Bonnie and Phil Walker (pictured right, with their children) were told during a routine prenatal scan that their fifth child, a daughter, had anencephaly. Doctors recommended abortion, but the Walkers refused. From Life News:

Bonnie and Phil Walker discovered that their unborn child might die at birth and so doctors offered them an “option” which they found shocking….

They were told it was… not a “viable” pregnancy and were offered an abortion within the week.

“It was that blunt”, said Bonnie Walker, who has four older children with husband Phil. He added: “There should never be a choice like that.”

Grace Walker was born and survived 15 minutes. Watch as Bonnie and Phil tell their story:

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

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

by Carder

I feel like I didn’t realize how much I needed to tell this story until it was happening…. And how I felt afterwards really showed me a part of myself that had stopped kind of living after the abortion experience.

It’s more of a subtle inward change that I experienced.

~ Amanda Englund, post-abortive mother, doula, and professional placental encapsulation service specialist on how she arrived at sharing her abortion story on The Abortion Diary Podcast, Huffington Post, September 18

“The Race to Save Our Century should be taught in every college in America.” ~ Eric Metaxas, New York Times bestselling author of Bonhoeffer and Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Hoeroic Campaign to End Slavery

On sale now, by pro-life activist Jason Jones, producer of Bella, and scholar John Zmirak, is The Race to Save Our Century, a book that reviews the brutalities of the 20th and 21st Centuries, the heroic stories of those who stood against them, and offers five principles to restore at Culture of Life.

For one week, now through September 27, you can receive a FREE copy of this important book, signed by Jason, in return for pledging $10 a month to support JillStanek.com! I’m setting no time limit for this pledge – cancel when you like.

But know your monthly donation supports the ongoing work of not only one of the “Top Ten Enemies the Pro-Abortion Left Fears,” but also one of the newly named “7 Women Working Tirelessly to Screw Over Other Women”!

In other words, abortion proponents hate what I have to say – but they’re paying attention.

We are almost halfway to a $10,000 goal we’d like to reach NOW, which will carry us through the first two months of 2015. Monthly support is critical. It provides peace of mind and helps us set a budget.

Thanks! Pledge $10/month to JillStanek.com and enjoy a FREE signed copy of The Race to Save Our Century!

He takes care of his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms. He carries them close to his heart. He gently leads those that have little ones.

~ Isaiah 40:11, New International Reader’s Version

Good morning, and Happy Sunday! Here were my top five favorite political cartoons this week. What was yours? Be sure to vote in the poll at the bottom of the post!

by Chip Bok at Townhall.com…

 by Matt Davies at GoComics.com…

 a twofer by Lisa Benson at Townhall.com…

 (yes, Pelosi really said that)…

 by Steve Kelley at Townhall.com…

 plus a liberal bonus, by Clay Jones at Claytoonz.com…

Seventy-five. That’s how long I want to live: 75 years….

[L]iving too long… renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic….

My father illustrates the situation well. About a decade ago, just shy of his 77th birthday, he… had a heart attack, which led to a cardiac catheterization and ultimately a bypass. Since then, he has not been the same. Once the prototype of a hyperactive Emanuel, suddenly his walking, his talking, his humor got slower.

Today he can swim, read the newspaper, needle his kids on the phone, and still live with my mother in their own house. But everything seems sluggish. Although he didn’t die from the heart attack, no one would say he is living a vibrant life. When he discussed it with me, my father said, “I have slowed down tremendously. That is a fact. I no longer make rounds at the hospital or teach.” Despite this, he also said he was happy….

But parents also cast a big shadow for most children. Whether estranged, disengaged, or deeply loving, they set expectations, render judgments, impose their opinions, interfere, and are generally a looming presence for even adult children. This can be wonderful. It can be annoying. It can be destructive. But it is inescapable as long as the parent is alive. Examples abound in life and literature: Lear, the quintessential Jewish mother, the Tiger Mom. And while children can never fully escape this weight even after a parent dies, there is much less pressure to conform to parental expectations and demands after they are gone.

~ Obamacare architect, and brother of former Obama chief-of-staff Rahm, Ezekiel Emanuel, The Atlantic, September 17

[HT: Kelli; photo via The Atlantic]

As National Right to Life president Carol Tobias noted, the revelation that newly crowned Miss America Kira Kazantsev interned last year at a New York Planned Parenthood “will cast a shadow on her entire reign.”

Indeed, after LifeNews.com found that tidbit on Kazantsev’s now deleted LinkedIn profile, the Internet lit up with pro-life disgust over “Miss Abortion America” and pro-abortion defense of same with equal disdain for pro-life opposition.

Huffington Post, Washington Times, Fox News, Celebrity Cafe, Salon, and The Daily Beast are just a sampling of the online news sources reporting on and opining about the controversy.

The online altercation is itself worth noting. Twenty years ago only one of the aforementioned news sites (WT) even existed. Before Al Gore invented the Internet, pro-life criticisms of such as this would have been lodged in a vacuum.

The fact that this is no longer true means even if pro-lifers are mocked for having a problem with Miss America’s advocacy for the United States’ largest abortion business, the message is getting through to somebody somewhere: There’s something wrong with Planned Parenthood, and it has to do with abortion.

This forces Planned Parenthood to activate its PR defense machine. Putting one’s opponent in a defensive position is always good.

Salon noted the Miss America Pageant’s “long pro-choice history,” but is abortion becoming more radioactive over the course of time? Has Planned Parenthood become more radioactive? (Why did Miss America feel the need to delete evidence of their connection?) Is the Miss America controversy an indicator, or nothing new?

Your thoughts?

[Photo via Reuters]