Planned Parenthood's War on Babies and Taxpaayers

Just as it seems its becoming possible for Planned Parenthood to defend its existence, let alone its taxpayer funding, yet another video comes out. 

Now the pressure is on those politicians who seek to justify sending limited resources to such an organization, when in fact there are other community health organizations that are more effective and less controversial. Planned Parenthood is a powerful lobby, and expects something back from the politicians who put them in office. 

Before when funding for Planned Parenthood came up, the group and it's political allies simply rallied around the "War on Women" slogan. Shockingly, something so absurd worked. But they can only got to that well so many times. The undercover videos make it nearly impossible that such a strategy can continue. 

I previously wrote about Planned Parenthood's role in the "War on Women" meme for Organization Trends.

In February 2011, the Republican-controlled House was debating the proposed “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.”  That’s when Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, said, “This legislation, represents an entirely new front in the war on women and their families.”  The Center for American Progress followed Nadler’s comment with a press release, “The Right’s War on Women.”  Planned Parenthood led a protest against the legislation with printed signs that said “War on Women.” …

“The ‘War on Women’ describes the legislative and rhetorical attacks on women and women’s rights taking place across the nation.  It includes a wide-range of policy efforts designed to place restrictions on women’s health care and erode protections for women and their families.  Examples at the state and federal level have included restricting contraception; cutting off funding for Planned Parenthood; state-mandated, medically unnecessary ultrasounds; abortion taxes; abortion waiting periods; forcing women to tell their employers why they want birth control, and prohibiting insurance companies from including abortion coverage in their policies.” …

EMILY’s List teamed with MoveOn to start the website StopTheWarOnWomen.com, asking people to sign a petition to “Tell Congress to stop its attacks on Planned Parenthood.”  The site added, “By signing this petition, you are opting to receive email from EMILY’s List and MoveOn.org Political Action.”  MoveOn.org posted on its own website the “Top 10 Shocking Attacks from the GOP’s War on Women.”  The top 10 charges include accusations against members of Congress and state legislatures for pro-life legislation and cuts to various programs.

If Joe Biden Makes Elizabeth Warren His VP Pick, She Will Have Powerful Friends to Boost Democrats 2016

Vice President Joe Biden, pondering shaking up the 2016 Democratic presidential primary by challenging Hillary Clinton, reportedly meeting with radical Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Credit:warren.senate.gov)

 This is fueling speculation that Biden might tap Warren to be his vice presidential running mate.

If so, Warren would bring in an immense infrastructure in the form of the nonprofit group Demos, as I wrote about last year in Organization Trends:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the freshman Massachusetts senator who pioneered the “you didn’t build that” philosophy, is using her new book, Fighting Chance, to throw red meat to the Left and position herself to the left of Democrats like Hillary Clinton, who are more comfortable with Wall Street donors. Warren’s book tour was well received among fawning liberal supporters across the country, many of whom are looking for an un-Hillary in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary.

“I’d spent nearly twenty years fighting to level the playing field for the middle class, and I’d seen millions of working families go over the economic cliff—and it was getting worse,” Warren writes in her book, explaining why she decided to run for Senate in 2012. “What kind of country would my grandchildren grow up in? What if the conservatives and the big banks and the big-time CEOs got their way and Washington kept helping the rich and powerful to get richer and more powerful? Could I really stand on the sidelines and stay out of this fight?”

The New Republic has called Warren “Hillary Clinton’s Worst Nightmare,” and much reporting since has followed similar themes, even as Warren feigns uninterest in presidential politics (just as she claims public clamor forced her to run for the Senate).

Still, many political observers claim former Secretary of State Clinton is invincible. Of course, similar claims were made in 2008. That year, in addition to her official campaign organization, Hillary had close allies in the nonprofit sector propping her up, such as the Center for American Progress (founded by a former Clinton White House chief of staff, John Podesta) and targeting her enemies, as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) did.

How can Warren compete with that?

Should Warren run, she will likely have her own infrastructure in place with Demos, the research and advocacy group whose slogan is “An Equal Say and Equal Chance for All.” Notice the similarity to the title of Warren’s book.

Of course, the Left’s vision of equal opportunity is usually based on some absurd equality-of-outcome scheme, which is part of the core policy positions of Demos: to spend more, tax more, redistribute more, restrict political speech more, and convince the public that big government is good for them. The organization’s mission statement even calls for “rethinking American capitalism as it exists today as a system of political economy.”

The name Demos is actually an ancient Greek word meaning “people” or “the mob.” The Greek term is the root of the English word democracy—and also of demagogue.

Before she was a senator, Demos honored Warren at its 10th anniversary gala in 2010 with its “Transforming America” award, because Warren was the architect of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation (New York Times, April 10, 2010). Demos aggressively advocated for the Dodd-Frank bill and has long supported Warren. In 2003 Demos helped promote Warren’s previous book, The Two Income Trap. But that’s understandable, given that the senator’s daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, is a co-founder and currently chairman of the governing board for Demos.

Demos has a new president, Heather McGhee, who took the job in March when Miles Rapaport left to become president of Common Cause (see Organization Trends, May 2014). McGhee ascended to the presidency after serving as vice president of policy and outreach. She previously served as the deputy policy director for the ill-fated 2008 presidential campaign of former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards (D). There’s no reason to believe she was among the campaign aides involved in covering up Edwards’ extramarital affair or his questionable use of campaign funds that led to his indictment by a federal grand jury. (He was acquitted.)

But more importantly where Demos is concerned, Edwards sought to position himself far to the left of both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during that primary, running a “two Americas” campaign based on class warfare themes that approximate most of the positions in policy papers and books that the organization publishes.

“I am honored that Demos’ board and staff have entrusted me with the leadership of this extraordinary organization at this moment,” McGhee said in a statement after her promotion. “It’s true that a future progressive majority is emerging, but deep change is needed to ensure that the next generation has a meaningful say in our democracy and a chance in our economy. At a time when more Americans are demanding solutions to the inequality crisis, there’s simply no place I’d rather be.”

Other top staff members have a history in left-wing activism.

Brenda Wright, the Demos vice president of legal strategies, is a former managing attorney for the National Voting Rights Institute in Boston, as well as a board member for Common Cause of Massachusetts—Warren’s state, coincidentally. She was also the director of the voting rights project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, where she remains a board member.

Why Did the Left Turn Against Religious Liberty?

Below is an excerpt from my recent piece for Organization Trends:

On June 26, the Supreme Court by 5 to 4 struck down all state-level bans on same-sex marriage. Since then, a poll found that 19 percent of Americans believe “religious institutions or clergy should be required to perform same-sex marriages.” The survey was conducted by the Barna Group, which studies attitudes toward religion in America. That percentage may seem small, but it means one in five Americans have no problem with the government violating the first freedom of the First Amendment. That number increases to more than a quarter—26 percent—among Americans under the age of 40, who believe churches and pastors should be forced to perform gay marriage ceremonies.

Sen. Ted Kennedy (bioguide.congress.gov)

Reasonable people can disagree on the issue of gay marriage as a public policy, but what should not be questioned are the basic First Amendment principles of the country, rights that were reinforced by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed in 1993 by a Democratic administration and Congress.

The majority and dissenting opinions in the same-sex marriage case, Obergefell v. Hodges, addressed the matter of religious freedom. Even President Barack Obama made passing reference to this fundamental liberty when he praised the ruling in the Rose Garden: “All of us who welcome today’s news should be mindful of that fact; recognize different viewpoints; revere our deep commitment to religious freedom.”

For the court’s majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote:

It must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned. The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered. The same is true of those who oppose same-sex marriage for other reasons.

It’s good to know Kennedy still thinks Americans have the right to hold private religious views. Yet Chief Justice John Roberts responded that many difficult issues remain:

“Respect for sincere religious conviction has led voters and legislators in every state that has adopted same-sex marriage democratically to include accommodations for religious practice. The majority’s decision imposing same-sex marriage cannot, of course, create any such accommodations. … Hard questions arise when people of faith exercise religion in ways that may be seen to conflict with the new right to same-sex marriage—when, for example, a religious college provides married student housing only to opposite-sex married couples, or a religious adoption agency declines to place children with same-sex married couples.”

Now congressional Republicans are considering taking action to protect the First Amendment right to practice religion, not only for clergy and their congregations, but for private businesses as well.  

Another Supreme Court decision, this one in 1990, prompted lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to fear it would be too sweeping. Fierce left-winger Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) sponsored a Senate version to complement the House bill of another hard-left Democrat, then-Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), whom no one ever accused of being a right-wing theocrat.  The bill passed almost unanimously through the House and Senate, and it was happily signed by another Democrat, President Bill Clinton.

Again, Schumer and Kennedy weren’t any kind of right-wingers. But neither are the 21 state laws that were modeled after the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that Kennedy, Schumer, and Clinton made into law. The legislation was so non-controversial in its time that President Bill Clinton remarked on the bipartisanship consensus on the issue when signing the bill into law, “The power of God is such that even in the legislative process miracles can happen.”
But just this past year, after a journalist hounded a mom-and-pop pizza shop in Walkerton, Indiana, that state’s version of RFRA sparked a national controversy that even the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) felt obliged to join. Charles Schumer, now a U.S. senator and apparently hoping everyone would forget his 1993 actions, tweeted:  “@NCAA if you’re looking for a new place to hold 2021 #FinalFour – NY has plenty of great venues that don’t discriminate.”