January 22, 2016::End of the day round-up (pg 2)

Pastors deliver petitions to lawmakers opposing LGBTQ rights

Pastor Ron Johnson of the Indiana Pastors Alliance says GOP Senate leader David Long is the “source of the problem.” Johnson joined about two-dozen supporters Wednesday to deliver the petitions with more than 5,500 signatures opposing two Senate bills.

One bill would extend discrimination protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in public accommodation, housing and employment. The other would do the same but exclude transgender people. Both measures contain several religious exemptions.

\Michael Newdow Has Filed Another Lawsuit to Remove “In God We Trust” from U.S. Currency

The federal lawsuit, which was filed in Akron, Ohio, may be unique for relying not on the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, but on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). In essence, Newdow takes the same argument used by Hobby Lobby to get out of covering contraception for its employees and says that the U.S. Treasury can’t push God onto atheists without a “compelling governmental interest,” which he believes they don’t have.
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Again, you can laugh at all this, but remember that there’s a case that’ll go in front of the Supreme Court very soon that revolves around Catholic nuns who say filling out a short form to get out of paying for contraception for their employees is a violation of their faith.

If you have a firmly held religious conviction, the courts don’t get to judge how silly it is. Newdow is using that logic to make a very different kind of argument on behalf of atheists.

John Eidsmoe: Planned Parenthood Deserves 'Some Of The Blame' For Shooting At Clinic

“But I would simply have to say there that if we’re talking about a culture of death, Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry have in fact contributed a great deal to that culture of death,” he said. “I mean, every abortion results in the death of an innocent human being and they are cheapening life by doing that. So I think some of the blame needs to be right there.”

Ted Cruz To Address Church Led By Extremist 'Prophet'

Joyner doesn’t think America has much time left, telling viewers of his television show “Prophetic Perspective on Current Events” that President Obama’s re-election “could be the end of our republic as we know it” and that a time will come when “our only hope is a military takeover; martial law.”

Joyner cited a prophetic vision he received to predict that the devastating 2011 earthquake in Japan would push America into Nazism, and he has warned that gay marriage will usher in national destruction, a second civil war, divine judgment, a ban on men and women marrying each other and the Mark of the Beast.

He has also boasted of advising several politicians, including one unnamed U.S. senator whom he told that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for homosexuality.

“Aborted fetal tissue” and vaccines: Combining pseudoscience and religion to demonize vaccines « Science-Based Medicine

As hard as it is to believe after seven and a half years of existence and nearly 2,400 posts on SBM, every so often, something reminds me that we here at SBM haven’t discussed a topic that should be discussed. So it was a couple of weeks ago, when I saw a familiar name in a news story that wasn’t about vaccines. You might recall a news story last month when a shadowy group with ties to radical antiabortion groups, the Center for Medical Progress, led by a man named David Daleiden, ran a highly questionable “sting” operation (complete with fake IDs) to “prove” that Planned Parenthood was selling aborted fetuses for medical research.

While reading news stories about Daleiden and CMP, I came across a familiar name, a name that many of us who discuss antivaccine misinformation are familiar with. I’m referring to Theresa Deisher, founder of the Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute. It turns out that Deisher helped to prepare Daleiden for his role as a biomedical representative that he assumed in order to deceive representatives of Planned Parenthood. She taught him how to talk the talk and walk the walk, so to speak, so that he was convincing as a representative of a biomedical research firm.

I can hear you asking: So what? What do Daleiden and CMP have to do with vaccines? It’s not CMP per se, but Deisher who is relevant. The reason that Deisher is so relevant to Science-Based Medicine (SBM) is because she is one of the foremost promoters of a particularly pernicious form of antivaccine misinformation that tries desperately to create a religious basis to oppose vaccines with antivaccine activism. It is a form of misinformation designed to deceive those who believe abortion is a moral wrong into thinking that vaccines, too, are a moral wrong because some of the viruses used to make specific vaccines are grown during the manufacturing process in cell lines derived from human fetuses decades ago. But Deisher goes one huge step beyond just guilt by association for vaccines. She is, as the news story cited above notes, the foremost promoter of a related and equally pernicious form of antivaccine information that claims that DNA from the fetal cell lines used to grow vaccine strains of viruses is a cause of autism. The truly depressing thing about Deisher is that she is, in fact, a real scientist (or at least was).

In any event, it occurred to me that, although I’ve mentioned Deisher briefly before in the context of the Disneyland measles outbreak, I’ve never deconstructed her antivaccine misinformation in detail here. Yet, her work is often cited by antivaccine activists to persuade those whose religion tells them abortion is morally wrong that they shouldn’t vaccinate their children by adding to the false claim that somehow “fetal parts” are used in the making of vaccines the even more false claim that fetal DNA somehow gets into the brain, recombines with the DNA in neurons, and causes autism. She’s also just released what appears to be a new paper claiming to show how fetal DNA causes autism. The confluence of her name coming up in stories about CMP and Planned Parenthood and her release of this new “paper” makes this a perfect time to write about Deisher.

“Aborted fetal tissue” and vaccines: Combining pseudoscience and religion to demonize vaccines « Science-Based Medicine

Stupid is, as stupid does,,,

So in Texas, it’s not enough to deny funding for abortions. If your facility performs abortions, Texas won’t give you money for anything. In fact, that is already state law. This budget provision goes further, in that now, it’s not enough that you don’t perform abortions in your facility. If you are associated with an organization that provides abortion services, you can’t get the cancer screening money.

Planned Parenthood Out of Cancer Screening Program

As part of the GOP's ongoing fight against Planned Parenthood, poor, uninsured women in Texas will soon be unable to obtain government-subsidized breast and cervical cancer screenings at the organization's clinics.

In an effort to boot Planned Parenthood from the joint state-federal Breast and Cervical Cancer Services program, Texas lawmakers wrote a provision into the state budget to prohibit clinics affiliated with abortion providers from receiving taxpayer funding for breast and cervical cancer screenings. That state budget takes effect Sept. 1.
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The 17 Planned Parenthood clinics participating in the Breast and Cervical Cancer Services program, or BCCS, were already prohibited by state law from performing abortions if they accepted taxpayer dollars. Planned Parenthood officials had said the budget rider was part of Republicans' efforts to put the organization out of business in the state.

Jeb Bush wants to move Planned Parenthood funding to abstinence-only health organizations

Former Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush wants to defund Planned Parenthood, just like almost every other Republican. But Bush has ideas for where the current funding should go.

Bush Tweeted, “we absolutely have to defund PP and redirect those funds to other women’s health orgs.”

But what organizations would Bush be willing to redirect these funds to? Well, for starters, they would have to be abstinence-only women’s health centers and ones that do not perform abortions.

Daily Kos reported that as governor of Florida, Bush was keen to redirect these funds to religiously-motivated organizations which did not offer any type of family planning services such as birth control.

If the GOP Defunded Planned Parenthood, This is How Americans Would Suffer

Some sobering statistics to consider from Lauren Nelson:

• The distribution of various methods of birth control to more than 2.13 million women and the distribution of 1.59 million emergency contraception kits… you know, the things that prevent the need for abortion
• The performance of more than 4,500 vasectomies and female sterilizations… again, preventing unwanted pregnancies
• The completion of no less than 1.14 million pregnancy tests and delivery of prenatal services to over 19,000 expectant mothers
• Around 3.7 million STI tests and 700,000 HIV tests, along with treatment for more than 43,000 patients testing positive
• Over 490,000 pap smears, 38,000 HPV vaccinations, and 39,000 procedures to remove abnormal and potentially cancerous tissue from the cervix
• Upwards of 500,000 breast exams, a crucial element in catching and treating breast cancer
• The staffing and resources of more than 700 health care centers across the nation, serving over 2.7 million patients, 80% of whom are living more than 150% below the poverty line

If the GOP Defunded Planned Parenthood, This is How Americans Would Suffer

Huckabee Floats Plan To Deploy U.S. Troops To Stop Women From Getting Abortions | ThinkProgress

Huckabee said he would “invoke the 5th and 14th amendments for the protection of every human being.” The Fifth Amendment states, “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger.” This suggests a Hucakbee presidency would unilaterally make all abortion illegally by deeming all fetuses are people.

He repeated a conservative line that there is now scientific proof that “unborn babies are human beings,” and the Supreme Court may not have known that when they ruled on Roe v. Wade in 1973. Many anti-choicers have pointed to a recent study that said a small percentage of 22-week fetuses can survive outside the womb and have used that as justification for earlier and earlier abortion bans.

As noted by, The Topeka-Capital Journal, Huckabee is clueless as to our own history,

Jesse Choper, professor emeritus of public law at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law, said in a phone interview Friday that Huckabee’s statement was “way off-base,” adding, “it does rival Donald Trump.”

“I think he’d better more carefully examine what he’s saying, because it is totally unprecedented,” Choper said Friday.

No matter how much the Supreme Court’s decisions over the years were disliked, Choper said, presidents did very little to fight them. He pointed to civil rights decisions of the 1950s as an example.

“It was simply noncompliance,” Choper said of previous presidential responses. “That’s very different than calling out the troops for abortion.”
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Choper noted that President Dwight D. Eisenhower called out troops in 1957 to enforce the Supreme Court’s desegregation order in Little Rock, Ark., “despite the fact that it’s well known that President Eisenhower was not terribly sympathetic” to the desegregation decision.

“He did what he believed he had to do,” Choper said.

Huckabee also said the Roe v. Wade decision was wrong to cite the right to privacy as a reason for abortion being permissible.

“Privacy doesn’t allow you to take a life,” he said.

Huckabee Floats Plan To Deploy U.S. Troops To Stop Women From Getting Abortions | ThinkProgress

Right-Wing Pundit: 'Slutty' Feminists Want To 'Sacrifice' Your Kids 'To Sex Gods' | Right Wing Watch

WorldNetDaily commentator Patrice Lewis has a message for parents in her column this weekend: “Protect your children. Don’t sacrifice them to the sex gods.”

According to Lewis, the LGBT community and “feminists trying to justify their slutty behavior” are turning kids “into raunchy little mini-adults,” all as part of an attempt to help “Planned Parenthood improve its bottom line” by urging children “to ‘explore their sexuality’ and experiment.”

The indoctrination taking place in school is nothing short of disgusting. Rather than concentrating on reading and writing, math and science, history and geography, students are instructed from kindergarten on the variations in human sexuality, encouraged to choose their gender du jour, and otherwise spoon-fed stimuli far beyond their capacities to comprehend.

It should come as no surprise that Planned Parenthood has an active role in what is euphemistically called “reproductive health services” in middle schools and high schools. With teens not just expected, but actively encouraged to be sexually active, Planned Parenthood stands in the wings to relieve girls of their unplanned “tissue” while refusing to counsel them about any repercussions such as psychological trauma or the increased risk of cancer.

Right-Wing Pundit: 'Slutty' Feminists Want To 'Sacrifice' Your Kids 'To Sex Gods' | Right Wing Watch

Texas GOP candidate: It’s a ‘myth’ that Planned Parenthood does ‘anything’ for women’s health

I may be naive here, but since when is "making money" a goal of Planned Parenthood?

Dan Patrick, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor in Texas, argued this week that the reason Planned Parenthood clinics were being forced to close throughout the state was because they did not have “anything” to do with women’s health.

During a Republican runoff debate between Patrick and current Lt. Governor David Dewhurst on Wednesday, WFAA moderators pointed out that only about six abortion clinics were able to remain open after the legislature passed strict new laws last year.

Patrick noted that, as a state senator, he had worked with Dewhurst to cut funding for Planned Parenthood.

“This is a myth that Planned Parenthood has anything to do with women’s health,” he opined. “Why are they closing clinics if they’re making money on providing women’s health? They’re closing clinics because they make all their money taking the lives of babies.”

[Yea well, I could interject here that it is a myth that the Reich cares about the same aforementioned babies or their mommas AFTER they are born.]

Patrick said that his goal was for Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion, to be “gone.”

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“Texas women are appalled by Dan Patrick’s deplorable statements on women’s health care providers,” Paul said. “158,345 Texans received preventative health care at Planned Parenthood in 2013. Republicans still don’t get it: just trust Texas women. Republicans need to trust us to make our own choices, to consult with our families and our doctors. Dan Patrick doesn’t trust Texas women, so Texas women can’t trust Dan Patrick as Lt. Governor.”

Texas GOP candidate: It’s a ‘myth’ that Planned Parenthood does ‘anything’ for women’s health

Pat Robertson: Some Planned Parenthood ‘abortion mills’ have a ‘billion dollars in cash!’ | The Raw Story

Lies, lies, everywhere a lie Blockin' out the truth, confusin' the mind Do this, don't do that, can't you see the lies? Obviously Pat Robertson and the Reich can't, or choose not to.

Televangelist Pat Robertson on Tuesday lashed out at the Planned Parenthood organization, and said that some chapters had over a billion dollars in cash on hand.

During Tuesday’s edition of The 700 Club, Robertson highlighted a former Indiana Planned Parenthood nurse who accused the organization of existing “for no other reason than to kill unborn babies.”

“Planned Parenthood is enormously rich,” he opined. “And some of these individual chapters may have as much as a billion dollars in cash on hand. They are getting right now from the federal government — it’s in the budget — $550 million a year. Taxpayer money to go into that abortion mill.”

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As for the claim that some chapters have a “billion dollars,” the most recent Planned Parenthood annual report notes that all of the affiliates and the national office combined have total assets of $1.6 billion.

Pat Robertson: Some Planned Parenthood ‘abortion mills’ have a ‘billion dollars in cash!’ | The Raw Story

Bluestem Prairie: Bradlee Dean: Obama administration "looking to eradicate the Hispanic and the Negro race"

Now broadcasting without longtime sidekick Jake Macmillian MacAulay, Bradlee Dean nonetheless remains on the radio via the Sons of Liberty radio show.

He's still saying peculiar things on the show, even without MacAulay's help. On Saturday, October 12, near the end of the first hour, Dean claimed that Barack Obama seeks to "eradicate the Hispanic and the 'Negro' race," via Planned Parenthood.

Dean went on to say that Obama isn't popular in either black or Latino communities, so much so in the latter case that the President of the United States has to bring "illegals in Mexico" to this country.

Heckova plan to eradicate "the Hispanic race" in America, but what does a small-town blogger know.

Bluestem Prairie: Bradlee Dean: Obama administration "looking to eradicate the Hispanic and the Negro race"

Thousands Of Women Forced To Find New Doctors Now That Texas Has Defunded Planned Parenthood | ThinkProgress

Why cant teapugs get it through their heads the PP is not JUST abortions,,,the thought of having to change doctors would have me running for the hills,,,

Still, agency officials say they will not turn clients away who cannot afford to pay, concerned that inconvenienced women will skip life-saving exams rather than search for new doctors.

Thousands Of Women Forced To Find New Doctors Now That Texas Has Defunded Planned Parenthood | ThinkProgress


,,,but Visiting Judge Gary Harger ruled that Texas may design a state-run Women’s Health Program that excludes qualified providers like Planned Parenthood — despite the fact that, on a federal level, states aren’t allowed to block qualified health providers from receiving Medicaid funds.

The new Women’s Health Program launches on Tuesday, and Monday’s ruling ensures that Planned Parenthood won’t be part of it. Before Texas Republicans began their crusade against Planned Parenthood, the organization provided preventative cancer screenings, contraceptive services, and family planning assistance to nearly half of the state’s 110,000 low-income women in the Medicaid program.

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Since the Hyde Amendment already prevents Medicaid programs from covering abortion services, the Planned Parenthood affiliates in Texas don’t actually perform abortions for any of their patients in the Women’s Health Program.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/12/31/1381181/texas-end-planned-parenthood/

The Hyde Amendment

After Roe v. Wade decriminalized abortion in 1973, Medicaid covered abortion care without restriction. In 1976, Representative Henry Hyde (R-IL) introduced an amendment that later passed to limit federal funding for abortion care. Effective in 1977, this provision, known as the Hyde Amendment, specifies what abortion services are covered under Medicaid.

Over the past two decades, Congress has debated the limited circumstances under which federal funding for abortion should be allowed. For a brief period of time, coverage included cases of rape, incest, life endangerment, and physical health damage to the woman. However, beginning in 1979, the physical health exception was excluded, and in 1981 rape and incest exceptions were also excluded.

In September 1993, Congress rewrote the provision to include Medicaid funding for abortions in cases where the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest. The present version of the Hyde Amendment requires coverage of abortion in cases of rape, incest, and life endangerment.

http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/facts/public_funding.html