Politics

[Cackalacky]

I wonder if he believes that dinosaurs existed?

Oh they do but they have to completely ignore all evidence of their existence. So he has to think humans and dinosaurs existed together at some point. There is a whole museum in.Kentucky devoted to promoting literal creation.

Where you can ride a tricerotops and

raptors were vegetarians before the fall and existed side by side with Stone Age humans.

 

[GowerND11]

Any time I see this creationist stuff come up I immediately get angry because of their willful ignorance to data and science.

I also think of these funny videos:

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2z-OLG0KyR4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FZFG5PKw504" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Cackalacky]

Ray Comfort... Banana Man.

Then There is Kirk Cameron and his Crocoduck

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a0DdgSDan9c" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Whiskeyjack]

The NYT's Ross Douthat just published an article titled "Lies, Carly Fiorina and Abortion":

There has been an impressive amount of angry liberal commentary, which has spilled over into the mainstream press coverage (or do I repeat myself?) of the issue, about how in the last Republican presidential debate Carly Fiorina allegedly cited an entirely imaginary video in order to make a crazy claim about Planned Parenthood’s brain-harvesting ghoulishness that’s totally unsupported by the facts. Here’s Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick, in a representative rant, attacking Fiorina’s “big fib,” the sheer “enormity” of which has shaken Lithwick’s faith in honesty in politics and journalism:

Nobody—not even Fiorina’s staunchest defenders—can say that these videos that clearly don’t exist are real. Even one of the most brazen defenders of the imaginary videos, Jonah Goldberg, opens with this concession to the petty, mewling fact-checkers: “[T]hey have a point. The exact scene, exactly as Fiorina describes it, is not on the videos.” (The article could felicitously end there, but Goldberg goes on to defend the statement under the theory that since “[m]ost Americans are morally appalled by late-term abortions,” Fiorina might as well supply them with pretend images to go with their preconceptions.)

Not even the most robust defenders of Fiorina’s defense can say much more than that some of the images grafted onto the sound bite might not be completely false. And yet there is still no word from Fiorina, her campaign, or her super-PAC to indicate that she misspoke, or misremembered, or confused some other video with a video about Planned Parenthood. There seems to be no place in the middle for Fiorina to just put out a statement saying, “Hey, I misspoke. Sorry.”

This is an extraordinary moment in the annals of political deception. No walk-back, no clarification, just a persistent insistence that a video that doesn’t exist and can’t even be manufactured in the underground labs of political deception is really out there but, like the Emperor’s new clothes, only the virtuous can see it. In Fiorina’s world and the world posited by Goldberg, if people want to believe the big lie about the kicking fetus and the brain harvesting badly enough, who are we to tell them it couldn’t have happened?

Okay, before I risk becoming a “brazen defender” of blatant fabrication, let me attempt to a neutral description of the underlying evidence that’s in dispute.

Let’s start with what Fiorina said on stage:

As regards Planned Parenthood, anyone who has watched this videotape, I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, it’s heart beating, it’s legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.

Now it’s very clear what scene she’s referencing: It’s a section of this Center for Medical Progress film, the relevant portion of which you can find right here (warning: tough-to-watch content), that weaves together interviews, graphic footage, and excerpts from the CMP’s sting videos of Planned Parenthood officials to tell an anti-PP story. The specific clip in question features a former technician for Stem Express, Planned Parenthood’s (erstwhile) partner in fetal-tissue procurement, describing her work at a Planned Parenthood clinic; this interview is intercut with video footage of a fetus twitching while it expires in a metal bowl, which is not from the abortion/procurement being described, but taken from a different undercover video at an unidentified clinic. Here is my transcript of what the technician is saying, while the video plays and after, about her experience with an intact fetus and a Planned Parenthood worker:

“… its nose was very pronounced, it had eyelids, its mouth was pronounced. And since the fetus was still intact, she said, ‘okay, well, this is a really good fetus, and it looks like we can procure a lot from it. We’re going to procure brains.'”

Then if you watch the full film, you’ll see that the situation the technician is describing involves the worker showing her how she can tap the heart of the just-aborted fetus they’re looking at and make it start beating again, just before they jointly cut open the fetus’s face in order to actually acquire the brains. Again, we don’t see the tapping or cutting happen; the footage of the fetus that we see is from a different case, an undercover video obtained by a different pro-life group. And then the longer film is using the technician’s anecdote and the footage as part of an argument — buttressed by footage of interviews with Planned Parenthood higher-ups and others — that because fetal tissue harvesting is much easier when the fetus comes out intact, abortionists have incentives to perform later-term abortions in ways that sometimes/often end with fetuses alive in the air before they die.

So that’s a (no doubt partial) attempt at a summary of the film and footage that’s at issue. And having completed it, I’m a little bit confused about what’s being debated here. On the one hand, I think Fiorina’s critics are correct that she misdescribed the video, in two ways: She implied that the footage of the fetus was part of the scene being described (maybe because she thought it was; the documentary doesn’t make it clear that it’s a different fetus), and she has the Planned Parenthood worker saying “we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain,” as opposed to “look at this, I can make its heart beat; okay now let’s harvest its brain.” Neither of these misdescriptions strike me as lies, per se, in their original form: If you watch the film as a whole it’s easy to see how you could misremember the scene the way Fiorina describes it rather than the way it actually plays out. (Just as lots of people think they remember the line “play it again, Sam,” which is never actually uttered “Casablanca.”) But I agree with Lithwick that it would have been, and still would be, appropriate for Fiorina to correct herself, to say that she misremembered some of the details, instead of standing by her original words in their entirety.

But for her words to rise to the level of an extraordinary “big lie,” a vicious slander of abortion providers everywhere, it seems to me that something more than this kind of misdescription would need to be in play. If the scene in question literally did not exist, which is what the language of her critics consistently suggests — if Fiorina had conjured up a vision of an intact fetus with a working heart and twitching limbs having its brains harvested out of her hyperactive pro-life imagination — well, that would merit liberal shock and outrage. But she didn’t conjure or invent it: It’s very easy to figure out what scene she’s talking about, and the discrepancies between what’s in the documentary and her description aren’t wild or incredible or weird. There’s no outright fabrication here, in other words, and what Lithwick calls “the big lie about the kicking fetus and the brain harvesting” is a roughly-accurate summary of what the film actually shows. (A twitching, dying fetus? Check. A firsthand description of harvesting a brain from an intact fetus? Check again.)

So for Fiorina to actually be proven as wildly misleading and fundamentally dishonest as her critics keep suggesting, they would need to marshal evidence beyond just a parsing of her words, and demonstrate that the thing she’s describing is an inaccurate depiction of what happens inside abortion clinics that double as tissue procurement centers. They would need to prove that, for instance, the technician in the video is lying about what she saw and did, or that the footage of the twitching fetus in the bowl is fake, or that abortionists never approach the procedure with an eye toward making sure the fetal body comes out intact, or that the idea that this leads to “born alive” cases is just a myth and all testimony (including, implicitly, Planned Parenthood’s own) to the contrary is false or misleading.

Evidence on any of those counts would actually rebut Fiorina’s essential claim, which is that the process of acquiring organs from the unborn involves practices and habits that would shock the squeamishly pro-choice if they ever had to confront the reality — and that they ought to confront it, politicians very much included included, ideally by watching the videos the Center for Medical Progress has produced.

But I don’t see that kind of counter-evidence being offered in Lithwick’s piece, or in any other similar fact check. I see a lot of talk about selective editing, but mostly the claim is just that the CMP exaggerated Planned Parenthood’s eagerness to turn a profit on these practices, rather than that their videos mischaracterized the practices themselves. So I’ll put it to Fiorina’s critics: Is what she’s describing actually a pure fantasy? Is it entirely false to suggest that brains and other organs are regularly harvested from fetuses whose limbs can still twitch and whose hearts can still beat, and that abortion procedures are sometimes chosen with that harvesting in mind?

Because if it is false, that seems like an important point to press. But if not, I’m not sure that their case against Carly Fiorina, alleged prevaricator, is all that strong a rebuttal to her case against Planned Parenthood, publicly-funded dismemberer of tiny, still-twitching human lives.

 

[phgreek]

The NYT's Ross Douthat just published an article titled "Lies, Carly Fiorina and Abortion":

BINGO!

Easier to call Fiorina a Liar on details than to acknowledge the larger barbaric, and heinous truth....Its easy to convince yourself its all politics if you don't watch the videos. Psst...if you close your eyes, bad shit, and bad people still exist. Being upset over the presentation of clips doesn't make them untrue...We indeed have a crisis of character in this country, and this issue is front and center.

Most people accept abortion with some restrictions...abortion any time any reason is just not going to fly anymore. Further, harvesting and selling body parts is heinous and against the spirit R Vs. W. Reform is required, and people at PP also broke the law.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

For IE's left-leaning posters who may have dismissed the Planned Parenthood expose videos without watching them, the group hired a neutral 3rd party digital security and forensics firms to conduct an independent audit of their material. The firm found that there is no dubbing or alteration to the audio, and no evidence of misrepresentative editing.

If you haven't familiarized yourself with the videos yet, here's a quick guide to what's been released thus far:

On July 14, the Center for Medical Progress began releasing a series of videos about the Planned Parenthood abortion clinics. Reporting for the video project was done undercover and took place over the course of several years. The videos feature executives and staffers at Planned Parenthood and affiliated businesses discussing and demonstrating human organ harvesting and the fetal body part trade. Some of the discussions and footage taken inside abortion clinics is quite graphic.

The journalism project immediately went viral, with millions of people watching the videos. But the media have largely struggled to even mention the videos and what they show. When presidential candidate Carly Fiorina mentioned the videos during the 2nd GOP presidential debate, the media claimed to have no idea what she was talking about. The weak media coverage has left many Americans in the dark about the content of the videos. And sloppy reporting has led to misinformation about the videos.

Here’s a quick and easy guide to the 10 videos that have been released thus far and what they show.

1) Planned Parenthood Uses Partial-Birth Abortions to Sell Baby Parts

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jjxwVuozMnU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This 9-minute-video with more than 3 million views on YouTube features Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director for medical services, munching on a salad and sipping wine while she admits to altering abortion procedures in such a way that baby body parts can later be sold to human organ buyers. Laws prohibit altering abortion procedures for organ procurement.

“We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part,” Nucatola tells actors posing as organ traffickers. “I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”

See also: Full footage of the 3-hour meeting. Flyer from Planned Parenthood partner StemExpress, which purchases aborted baby parts, promising clinics “financial profits,” “financial benefits,” and “fiscal rewards.” An official from Planned Parenthood is directly quoted in the advertisement praising StemExpress.

2) Second Planned Parenthood Senior Executive Haggles Over Baby Parts Prices, Changes Abortion Methods

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MjCs_gvImyw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This video features Dr. Mary Gatter, who at the time the video was filmed was serving as the president of the Planned Parenthood Medical Directors Council. In this video, she haggles over the payment for human body parts from aborted fetuses. While negotiating a price, she says she doesn’t want to be the first person to name a price, because “the person who throws out the figure first is at a loss.”

“What would you expect for intact tissue?” the undercover journalist asks.

“Why don’t you start by telling me what you’re used to paying?” Gatter replies.

At the end of the video, she jokes that she’d like to get a Lamborghini out of the deal. Planned Parenthood, contra the video, claims to only recoup fixed costs in sale of human organs. They’ve never explained why negotiations would be taking place if that were true. Gatter also defends the practice of altering abortion procedures to procure intact organs.

See also: Full footage of the meeting.

3) Human Capital – Episode 1: Planned Parenthood’s Black Market in Baby Parts

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Xw2xi9mhmuo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This video features Holly O’Donnell, a former StemExpress technician who harvested the parts from the aborted babies at a Planned Parenthood clinic. This is the first video to really explore how the organs are procured.

“We were asked to procure certain tissues like brain, livers, thymus, pancreas, heart, lungs, and pretty much anything on the fetus. It’s basically a huge trafficking of fetal tissues,” she explained. “StemExpress is a company that hires procurement techs to draw blood and dissect dead fetuses and sell the parts to researchers.”

The video also features Dr. Savita Ginde, Vice President and Medical Director of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, talking about how to get the most money out of an aborted 11-week old.

See also: 4 Shocking Moments from the video (NSFW). On using digoxin to induce fetal demise vs. crushing fetuses while still alive in the womb.

4) Planned Parenthood VP Says Fetuses May Come Out Intact, Agrees Payments Specific to the Specimen

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GWQuZMvcFA8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This video features Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountains VP & Medical Director Savita Ginde discussing the practice of procuring baby parts as well as how to avoid media scrutiny of their organ harvesting.

Toward the end of the video, the cameras get inside the abortion clinic’s pathological laboratory. Medical assistants are heard and seen cracking skulls, and extracting brains. “Here’s some organs for you,” a Planned Parenthood employee said. “Here’s a stomach, kidney, heart.” A medical assistant exclaims: “And another boy!”

See also: Full footage. Eight shocking moments from 4th Planned Parenthood video.

5) Intact Fetuses “Just a Matter of Line Items” for Planned Parenthood TX Mega-Center

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/egGUEvY7CEg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This video features Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast Research Director Melissa Farrell trying to negotiate a business agreement with investigators posing as organ buyers. She also tells them that some abortionists harvest body parts for their own research. They discuss how they could defend increased payments for more valuable organs even though the law only permits payment for costs. “It’s all just a matter of line items,” she says.

This video also features employees of a Gulf Coast clinic pulling a 20-week-old twin baby out of the freezer, and graphically sifting through second trimester body parts. An employee holds up a liver and lungs as the technician gushes over how intact the organs are. A large severed limb is also pulled out of the dish where the other mangled remains lay. It is in this section of the video that we hear about the Planned Parenthood Federation’s encouragement of fetal organ harvesting.

See also: “Full” footage. Supplement to the “full” footage. Seven most important takeaways from the 5th Planned Parenthood exposé.

6) Human Capital – Episode 2: Inside the Planned Parenthood Supply Site

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ABzFZM73o8M" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This video once again features former StemExpress procurement technician Holly O’Donnell. O’Donnell worked in Planned Parenthood clinics in California. In this video she explains how the procurement works and the cooperation between Planned Parenthood and Stem Express. Planned Parenthood provides the organ buyers with a list of what operations are being performed. Women are supposed to give consent for donating the body parts of their children. But, O’Donnell says, their organs were regularly harvested without the informed consent of the mothers.

“There were times they would just take what they wanted,” said Holly O’Donnell, a former StemExpress procurement technician. “And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.”

O’Donnell talks about one doctor who seemed to enjoy aborting children and who rushed through procedures. We also learn how the dead baby parts are shipped.

7) Human Capital – Episode 3: Planned Parenthood’s Custom Abortions for Superior Product

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FzMAycMMXp8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This is the video that the media claim doesn’t exist. It’s absolutely horrifying. It combines clips from previous videos we’ve already seen, such as some of the statements of Planned Parenthood officials, with the claims of others in the baby organ procurement business. But the centerpiece is the first-person testimony of O’Donnell explaining how a late-term baby boy was aborted, how she didn’t know if he was technically alive or not since the heart was beating. She says she harvested his brain by cutting his head open beginning at the chin. She describes how afterwards she had difficulty shoving him into a container because he was so big. She says it was the hardest experience she ever had. O’Donnell describes harvesting the boy’s body parts with her colleague:

“… its nose was very pronounced, it had eyelids, and its mouth was pronounced. And then since the fetus was still intact, she said, ‘okay, well, this is a really good fetus, and it looks like we can procure a lot from it. We’re going to procure brains.’”

While she’s talking about this, footage of another aborted later-term baby kicking his legs in a dish is shown. Later we see a picture of yet another boy who was born premature and died in his parents’ arms.

See also: Carly Fiorina discusses brain harvesting at debate. Misinformation about the video.

8) Planned Parenthood Baby Parts Buyer StemExpress Wants “Another 50 Livers/Week”

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cz1gRNPgMvE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This searchnut.com features Planned Parenthood organ buyer StemExpress’s CEO Cate Dyer talking about “consistent growth” in the industry. She says, “Planned Parenthood has volume because they’re a volume institution.” Asked what would make her happy, she says “another 50 livers a week.” She says they work with almost triple digit numbers of clinics. They discuss intact cases, though the company later claimed it was just referring to intact organs, not entire bodies.

Dyer also discusses the lack of sanitary conditions at some clinics, which makes it difficult to get human organs that are not contaminated.

“I’ve seen really rampant, rampant problems with bacteria in certain clinics,” Dyer said. “I’ve seen staph come out of clinics. I mean, I’ve seen all sorts of things come out of clinics.”

9) Planned Parenthood Baby Parts Vendor ABR Pays Off Clinics, Intact Fetuses “Just Fell Out”

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ndJMawjoyPc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This video features Perrin Larton, the procurement director for Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR), a California-based non-profit organ middleman. She tells an undercover journalist that pro-lifers are making business difficult for baby organ traffickers.

Larton notes that while there have been federal limits on embryonic stem cell lines, taxpayer-funded research on aborted baby parts has gone on for decades.

“Fetal got lost in the mix,” she said. She said that they sent fetal tissue to the National Institutes of Health even though the tissue was gleaned from abortion.

This video features graphic discussions of how abortionists shred body parts and tear the baby apart in the womb.

10) Top Planned Parenthood Exec: Baby Parts Sales “A Valid Exchange,” Can Make “A Fair Amount of Income”

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c9EU_02c5bM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Though this video featuring discussions with a wide range of Planned Parenthood executives isn’t graphic, it is in some ways the most troublesome for Planned Parenthood. That’s because this video shows that Planned Parenthood encourages the fetal organ trade at the very highest levels. They discuss how exchanging money for tissue is valid. Deb VanDerhei, the national director of the Consortium of Planned Parenthood Abortion Providers claims that some colleagues generate a great deal of income on the sale of human organs from aborted babies. Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, senior medical advisor for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, doesn’t shy away from specific discussions of the human organ trade, specifying which human organs buyers are interested in, such as eyes, brains and gonads. “Certainly everything we provide,” she says.

Dr. Vanessa Cullins, VP for external medical affairs for Planned Parenthood, shares her worry that exposure of Planned Parenthood’s participation in human organ harvesting could destroy it. VanDerhei talks about how the entire industry is trying to figure out how to handle payment for unborn baby parts, as it would be a public relations disaster if it came out what Planned Parenthood was selling. Both VanDerhei and Nucatola talk about how the lack of formal guidelines is intentional. They talk about avoiding a paper trail by not discussing things over email. Executives worry about congressional oversight and how that would affect their business. To sum up, Planned Parenthood clearly sells human organs (that is, exchanges them for money), this discussion goes well beyond cost recuperation, they are terrified of media scrutiny of their human organ harvesting trade, and they are terrified of congressional interest in human organ harvesting from aborted children.

 

[pkt77242]

For IE's left-leaning posters who may have dismissed the Planned Parenthood expose videos without watching them, the group hired a neutral 3rd party digital security and forensics firms to conduct an independent audit of their material. The firm found that there is no dubbing or alteration to the audio, and no evidence of misrepresentative editing.

If you haven't familiarized yourself with the videos yet, here's a quick guide to what's been released thus far:

When you are paying someone there is no such thing as a neutral third party.

Shockingly PP hired a firm as well which said that it had been altered. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/us/abortion-planned-parenthood-videos.html?referer=

Who knows what the actual truth is.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

When you are paying someone there is no such thing as a neutral third party.

Really? Planned Parenthood hired "Fusion GPS", an opposition research firm with ties to the Democratic Party.

CMP hired Coalfire Systems, Inc., a large corporation that specializes in testifying about the authenticity of digital media in civil and criminal cases. One is explicitly partisan, and the other is not; one is generalist, and the other is a subject-matter expert. That's about as neutral and credible as one can get on this subject.

Edit: Try Googling "Coalfire Systems, Inc." along with search terms like "partisan", "GOP", or "Republican". Absolutely nothing comes up. Now try doing the same for "Fusion GPS" and "partisan", "Democrat", etc. You'll see that these two firms are not remotely comparable in objectivity.

Though of course SKDKnickerbocker, the elite PR firm Planned Parenthood hired to spin this damning evidence for them, wants you to draw that exact conclusion and investigate no further. Coalfire Systems, Inc. must be working for the Red Team, so no need to credit anything they put forth, right?

Who knows what the actual truth is.

I'd say the people who have actually watched the videos and followed this story online are a lot closer to the truth here than the Progressives who summarily dismissed the evidence as inconvenient to their worldview.

 

[pkt77242]

Really? Planned Parenthood hired "Fusion GPS", an opposition research firm with ties to the Democratic Party.

CMP hired Coalfire Systems, Inc., a large corporation that specializes in testifying about the authenticity of digital media in civil and criminal cases. One is explicitly partisan, and the other is not; one is generalist, and the other is a subject-matter expert. That's about as neutral and credible as one can get on this subject.

Edit: Try Googling "Coalfire Systems, Inc." along with search terms like "partisan", "GOP", or "Republican". Absolutely nothing comes up. Now try doing the same for "Fusion GPS" and "partisan", "Democrat", etc. You'll see that these two firms are not remotely comparable in objectivity.

Though of course SKDKnickerbocker, the elite PR firm Planned Parenthood hired to spin this damning evidence for them, wants you to draw that exact conclusion and investigate no further. Coalfire Systems, Inc. must be working for the Red Team, so no need to credit anything they put forth, right?



I'd say the people who have actually watched the videos and followed this story online are a lot closer to the truth here than the Progressives who summarily dismissed the evidence as inconvenient to their worldview.

I believe that I have seen 5 of the 6 videos but nice try. My point is that when you are being paid by someone it is hard to be completely objective. Having watched the videos doesn't change my opinion of abortion. Feel free to keep characterizing me however you would like but if you cared about the facts, you could have asked me if I had watched the videos.

I have always been for minimizing abortion by getting to the root cause of why people have an abortion not by making it illegal. Making it illegal won't end abortions anymore then drugs being illegal makes people stop using them. Abortion was around long before it was legal, and if it is made illegal it will be around long after that point as well. The key to minimizing abortions is to find out what personal and societal pressure/consequences/lack of support etc. lead to someone making that decision. If we as a society can alleviate those "pressures" then maybe we can make some headway on significantly reducing abortions.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

When you are paying someone there is no such thing as a neutral third party.

Shockingly PP hired a firm as well which said that it had been altered. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/us/abortion-planned-parenthood-videos.html?referer=

Who knows what the actual truth is.

It's slightly alarming when something like this surfaces and no one seems outraged besides the people who've always valued all human life.

The practices being unearthed are devastating at minimum. Does your ambivalence come from you assuming it must be the right trying to dup the public or because the videos really don't bother you?

EDIT** I see your post above and don't want you to think I'm trying to heckle. Just trying to understand why your position seemed so dismissive.

 

[IrishLax]

I believe that I have seen 5 of the 6 videos but nice try. My point is that when you are being paid by someone it is hard to be completely objective. Having watched the videos doesn't change my opinion of abortion. Feel free to keep characterizing me however you would like but if you cared about the facts, you could have asked me if I had watched the videos.

I have always been for minimizing abortion by getting to the root cause of why people have an abortion not by making it illegal. Making it illegal won't end abortions anymore then drugs being illegal makes people stop using them. Abortion was around long before it was legal, and if it is made illegal it will be around long after that point as well. The key to minimizing abortions is to find out what personal and societal pressure/consequences/lack of support etc. lead to someone making that decision. If we as a society can alleviate those "pressures" then maybe we can make some headway on significantly reducing abortions.

It really isn't, unless you're an unethical shill. Many industries are entirely based on giving objective, 3rd party review despite receiving compensation from an interested party.

If you can find evidence that Coalfire Systems has a record of being "hired guns" or "biased" then your point has a lot of merit. If you can't, it really doesn't.

 

[pkt77242]

It's slightly alarming when something like this surfaces and no one seems outraged besides the people who've always valued all human life.

The practices being unearthed are devastating at minimum. Does your ambivalence come from you assuming it must be the right trying to dup the public or because the videos really don't bother you?

On the bold, while I understand what you are trying to say, that could be slightly condescending. Two reasonable people can have different opinions about when "life" starts, and when life needs to be protected. I am fully for a ban on late term abortions, and I would most likely support a ban on abortions past 26 weeks (about the time that viability hits 75%).

As to the second part, I already knew that abortion was an ugly thing the videos didn't change that. Why should the videos have changed my mind? The people from PP were being crass but then again they assumed that they were talking to people in the profession. Have you ever heard surgeons talk about procedures, or social workers (or psychologists) talk about things when they are talking with other people in the profession, it isn't always pretty. That isn't reason to be upset.

Now if PP is putting the women at harm by trying to do the abortion in a certain way to preserve the fetus for research, then it should be investigated, but that should be by the local medical boards, not by Congress.

Also as long as abortion is legal, fetal tissue donation is a good thing (as long as the women is not being subjected to increased risk) IMO. At least there is some small positive to come of the tragic event.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

On the bold, while I understand what you are trying to say, that could be slightly condescending. Two reasonable people can have different opinions about when "life" starts, and when life needs to be protected. I am fully for a ban on late term abortions, and I would most likely support a ban on abortions past 26 weeks (about the time that viability hits 75%).

As to the second part, I already knew that abortion was an ugly thing the videos didn't change that. Why should the videos have changed my mind? The people from PP were being crass but then again they assumed that they were talking to people in the profession. Have you ever heard surgeons talk about procedures, or social workers (or psychologists) talk about things when they are talking with other people in the profession, it isn't always pretty. That isn't reason to be upset.

Now if PP is putting the women at harm by trying to do the abortion in a certain way to preserve the fetus for research, then it should be investigated, but that should be by the local medical boards, not by Congress.

Also as long as abortion is legal, fetal tissue donation is a good thing (as long as the women is not being subjected to increased risk) IMO. At least there is some small positive to come of the tragic event.

I politely disagree with everything you said. I speak with many health care professionals on a daily basis, on and off the record. You attempt to relate their speech about removing a gall bladder or a cancer, as being the same as removing a developing child from the womb, and I do not accept it.

Condescension is the ugly part of indisputable facts being argued as though there are two sides.

It just so happens that a major faction of the American public (and the world) have decided they can determine what is and isn't logical.

There's another faction that argues creationism should be taught in science classes and it's 'almost' equally repugnant.

You can attempt to atomize the human being by talking about pluripotent stem cells and viability outside of the womb but it doesn't change the fact that at the moment of conception, the two cells began dividing and specializing into a human in an entropic world.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

I believe that I have seen 5 of the 6 videos but nice try. My point is that when you are being paid by someone it is hard to be completely objective. Having watched the videos doesn't change my opinion of abortion. Feel free to keep characterizing me however you would like but if you cared about the facts, you could have asked me if I had watched the videos.

I have no idea what you have or haven't watched, and wasn't taking a shot at you personally. But most of the people I know who continue to defend Planned Parenthood in the face of these videos haven't even watched them, because they read an article by a Progressive shill carrying water for PP that the videos are "deceptively edited" or some such other bullsh!t.

I have always been for minimizing abortion by getting to the root cause of why people have an abortion not by making it illegal. Making it illegal won't end abortions anymore then drugs being illegal makes people stop using them. Abortion was around long before it was legal, and if it is made illegal it will be around long after that point as well. The key to minimizing abortions is to find out what personal and societal pressure/consequences/lack of support etc. lead to someone making that decision. If we as a society can alleviate those "pressures" then maybe we can make some headway on significantly reducing abortions.

"I have always been for the minimizing of genocide by getting to the root cause of why people do it not by making it illegal. Making it illegal won't end genocide anymore than the Nuremberg Trials prevented the massacres in Rawanda in 1993. Genocide was around long before the UN attempted to legislate against it (ever read the Bible?), and those weak international laws haven't stopped it or changed human nature. The key to minimizing genocide is to find out why certain powerful majorities find it convenient to scapegoat and slaughter a vulnerable minority. If we as a society can stop it before it starts, then maybe we can make some headway toward reducing genocides worldwide."

Two reasonable people can have different opinions about when "life" starts, and when life needs to be protected.

As to the former, medical science is unanimous in affirming that human life starts at conception. As to the latter, there's one group who asserts the Christian idea that human life is sacred and deserving of legal protection from conception until death; and then there's another that wants to define a vulnerable group as something less than persons, thereby admitting horrific violence against them. There's not much room for compromise between those two positions. Would you like to discuss which one has resulted in fewer atrocities over the last hundred years? Stalin and Hitler didn't adhere to the former position.

As to the second part, I already knew that abortion was an ugly thing the videos didn't change that. Why should the videos have changed my mind? The people from PP were being crass but then again they assumed that they were talking to people in the profession. Have you ever heard surgeons talk about procedures, or social workers (or psychologists) talk about things when they are talking with other people in the profession, it isn't always pretty. That isn't reason to be upset.

They openly and casually admitted to trafficking in dismembered baby parts. That goes far beyond simply "being crass". On a related note, if you can watch a baby boy kick as he dies in an abortion-clinic bedpan without feeling horrified, then I'd submit there is something profoundly broken inside you, and further argument on this subject is unlikely to be productive as you're apparently lacking in basic humanity. That's why whether one has watched the videos is important.

Now if PP is putting the women at harm by trying to do the abortion in a certain way to preserve the fetus for research, then it should be investigated, but that should be by the local medical boards, not by Congress.

Planned Parenthood executives openly admit to this, as well as other illegalities, multiple times in the videos. But I'm at a loss as to how you can be exercised by harm to a mature human but utterly numb to the violent dismemberment of millions of tiny defenseless ones.

Also as long as abortion is legal, fetal tissue donation is a good thing (as long as the women is not being subjected to increased risk) IMO. At least there is some small positive to come of the tragic event.

Josef Mengele would approve of this sentiment.

 

[pkt77242]

It really isn't, unless you're an unethical shill. Many industries are entirely based on giving objective, 3rd party review despite receiving compensation from an interested party.

If you can find evidence that Coalfire Systems has a record of being "hired guns" or "biased" then your point has a lot of merit. If you can't, it really doesn't.

Are you arguing that objective/shill is binary?

I would argue that it is a continuum. Where 0 is objective and 10 is a "perfect" shill. I would also argue that most people fit somewhere between the 1-9 range. It is hard to be perfectly objective when you are being paid (not that you have to be a shill, but I would argue that you are more likely to be 1-3).


Also, by "you", I don't mean you.

 

[IrishinSyria]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/us/12experts.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

A company that specializes in providing expert witnesses isn't going to last long if it doesn't learn to give its clients the answer they want to hear.

I have no idea whether the videos are authentic or not, but it's not like anyone else ITT does either. I've watched some of the videos and I really don't thing I care even if they are authentic. PP tries to preserve organs so they can be used for potentially life-saving research? Some individuals use callous language? Some people in a large organization are abusing their role to try to illegally enrich themselves? Stop the press!

Nothing in those videos is going to change my opinion that a) criminalizing abortions doesn't serve any obvious government interest and b) PP is a net benefit for our society.

e. I realize that I won't be changing any minds either, so I'm going to try to bow out of this discussion. I think most of us know where the others stand at this point.

 

[connor_in]

I'll just leave this here for you guys...

Tired of capitalism? There could be a better way. - The Washington Post

 

[wizards8507]

I'll just leave this here for you guys...

Tired of capitalism? There could be a better way. - The Washington Post

Why you gotta ruin my day like that?

 

[Cackalacky]

Even as capitalism makes some workers’ lives miserable, those who can’t work are in even worse shape. Even after counting some or all public welfare benefits, the U.S. poverty rate in 2013 was anywhere from 15 percent to 18 percent. Most of this poverty is endured by vulnerable populations that markets discard as useless. According to my own calculations of the 2014 Annual Social and Economic Supplement, more than 80 percent of the officially poor are either children, elderly, disabled, students, caretakers or the involuntarily unemployed. Because they cannot work or they have a diminished ability to work, these groups often receive little to no direct income from the market and suffer a high risk of poverty as a result.

This to me is the crux of the bootstrap mentality of the capitalists and why I vehemently believe that amoral crony global capitalism is as much a failure as any other economic system. Its consequences are much more far reaching.

 

[GoIrish41]

I'll just leave this here for you guys...

Tired of capitalism? There could be a better way. - The Washington Post

IIRC, this concept was discussed at some length several months ago (by Whiskey, maybe?). I think it was coupled with a discussion about how robots were going to take over many service sector jobs in coming years and leave a lot of people with fewer options to survive. I don't have time to look it up, but I'm almost positive it was in this thread.

 

[wizards8507]

This to me is the crux of the bootstrap mentality of the capitalists and why I vehemently believe that amoral crony global capitalism is as much a failure as any other economic system.

I don't think anyone anywhere believes the disabled or children should have to fend for themselves. Students? Of course they should. They're deferring income today in exchange for greater income in the future. It's called sacrifice. Also, I've never heard someone defend "amoral crony global capitalism." Capitalism, at its core, is about the voluntary exchange of goods, services, and labor. Any cronyism that results is not caused by the voluntary exchange of goods, services, and labor, but by deviations therefrom.

The biggest problem with this idea of a guaranteed minimum income is that it presupposes that there is such a thing as a free lunch. Obviously that's false. The author of this brain-dead article wants folks to be free from the constraints of their employers; that is, to receive goods or services without working for them. The problem is, nobody can receive any good or service without work being done by somebody. If the recipient isn't the one laboring for what he receives, that means somebody else is laboring involuntarily on his behalf. That's slavery.

Its consequences are much more far reaching.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes

 

[wizards8507]

IIRC, this concept was discussed at some length several months ago (by Whiskey, maybe?). I think it was coupled with a discussion about how robots were going to take over many service sector jobs in coming years and leave a lot of people with fewer options to survive. I don't have time to look it up, but I'm almost positive it was in this thread.

That's such bullshit. The human race is 200,000 years old. The explosion of the service economy happened in the 1980s. People "survived" just fine for 199,970 years before they had a 8:00 - 4:30 shift at the Dairy Queen.

 

[GoIrish41]

That's such bullshit. The human race is 200,000 years old. The explosion of the service economy happened in the 1980s. People "survived" just fine for 199,970 years before they had a 8:00 - 4:30 shift at the Dairy Queen.

I am not making the argument, I'm saying that the argument was made.

But, now that you mention it, there were agriculture sector jobs until the Industrial Revolution made the manufacturing sector the engine of American growth and prosperity (while engulfing most of the farming jobs.) Manufacturing jobs were great until they were shipped overseas to the lowest bidders, leaving many Americans to settle for service sector jobs. What comes after the service sector jobs are devoured by "progress?" Eventually, we run out of "sectors" in which people can make a living, don't we?

 

[T Town Tommy]

I am not making the argument, I'm saying that the argument was made.

But, now that you mention it, there were agriculture sector jobs until the Industrial Revolution made the manufacturing sector the engine of American growth and prosperity (while engulfing most of the farming jobs.) Manufacturing jobs were great until they were shipped overseas to the lowest bidders, leaving many Americans to settle for service sector jobs. What comes after the service sector jobs are devoured by "progress?" Eventually, we run out of "sectors" in which people can make a living, don't we?

That's why we have rich people. Apparently they are the new "sector" in which those who don't want to work, get an education, or sacrifice can turn to. Another word for this new "sector" is "income redistribution." It sounds much better than "work."

 

[wizards8507]

I am not making the argument, I'm saying that the argument was made.

But, now that you mention it, there were agriculture sector jobs until the Industrial Revolution made the manufacturing sector the engine of American growth and prosperity (while engulfing most of the farming jobs.) Manufacturing jobs were great until they were shipped overseas to the lowest bidders, leaving many Americans to settle for service sector jobs. What comes after the service sector jobs are devoured by "progress?" Eventually, we run out of "sectors" in which people can make a living, don't we?

First step, eliminate the minimum wage. Nominal wages will fall a bit (i.e. income will be a smaller number) but real wages will stay flat (i.e. you'll still be able to buy the same about of shit because everything will be cheaper). Jobs will flood back to the United States and a low-paying job is a hell of a lot better than a no-paying job. We'll redevelop our human capital by growing a workforce with work ethic and skills, allowing them to advance from entry-level positions to semi-skilled, skilled, and trade positions.

 

[GoIrish41]

That's why we have rich people. Apparently they are the new "sector" in which those who don't want to work, get an education, or sacrifice can turn to. Another word for this new "sector" is "income redistribution." It sounds much better than "work."

Income redistibution, huh? Catchy phrase ... and one that works on both ends of the spectrum. Is it OK when the redistribution sends money to the rich, instead of the poor? The stock market is higher than it has ever been and the wealthy benefit as the average worker's wages stagnate -- actually, drop in real dollars -- and prices for basic necessities continue to climb? The disappearance of the middle class is a real thing, as is the rapidly expanding wealth at the top of the economy. If we keep going at this trajectory, what does our society look like in 20 or 30 years? When the inevitable consequences begin to have real and dramatic consequences to those of us who have found our way into the middle class and see it all slipping away, what then? It's easy to turn our noses up on the poor who would rather take handouts that do anything that resembles "sacrifice" until 99% of us ARE the poor.

First step, eliminate the minimum wage. Nominal wages will fall a bit (i.e. income will be a smaller number) but real wages will stay flat (i.e. you'll still be able to buy the same about of shit because everything will be cheaper). Jobs will flood back to the United States and a low-paying job is a hell of a lot better than a no-paying job. We'll redevelop our human capital by growing a workforce with work ethic and skills, allowing them to advance from entry-level positions to semi-skilled, skilled, and trade positions.

So, eliminate the minimum wage so we can compete with Indonesia or China -- places where employees work in horrid conditions for pennies per hour? That's the fix? You claim that jobs will flood back into the United States. Horray! A new generation of American workers will now have the honor of sewing Nike swooshes onto sneakers they can not afford. Beyond base survival in a terrible existance, what is the incentive for employess to participate in your plan to "redevelop our human capital ... with work ethic and skills?" as they watch the richest people in the country grow ever wealthier while they work for the same wages as 13 year old girls in the Philippines do today? Spoiler alert: I've been to the Philippines, and the dynamic economy you are describing is hideous for the average worker. It doesn't look remotely like the American Dream that this country used to pride itself on providing its citizens.

 

[Cackalacky]

So, eliminate the minimum wage so we can compete with Indonesia or China -- places where employees work in horrid conditions for pennies per hour? That's the fix? You claim that jobs will flood back into the United States. Horray! A new generation of American workers will now have the honor of sewing Nike swooshes onto sneakers they can not afford. Beyond base survival in a terrible existance, what is the incentive for employess to participate in your plan to "redevelop our human capital ... with work ethic and skills?" as they watch the richest people in the country grow ever wealthier while they work for the same wages as 13 year old girls in the Philippines do today? Spoiler alert: I've been to the Philippines, and the dynamic economy you are describing is hideous for the average worker. It doesn't look remotely like the American Dream that this country used to pride itself on providing its citizens.

Right... The American Dream remains a dream.

 

[RDU Irish]

Poor in America have it pretty good by global and historical standards. Would you rather live on $12k in 2015 USA or $100k (inflation adjusted) in 1915?

Artificially inflating our wages with a "minimum" pushes jobs overseas. Standard of living has dramatically increased in those evil countries stealing our jobs. One of the struggles of China is that their wage inflation has reduced their competitive advantage, seeing jobs run away to lower cost areas. Excuse me for lacking sorrow for our poor when the true poor of humanity are provided opportunity to improve their lives much more dramatically than the USA poor who really need a new Iphone or second TV so they can watch cable while they play Xbox.

 

[RDU Irish]

Beyond base survival in a terrible existance, what is the incentive for employess to participate in your plan to "redevelop our human capital ... with work ethic and skills?" .

Isolate this core issue that you quickly gloss over. Why work when you can subsist for free? There is no need to fight for basic survival, it is a guaranteed human right in this country. Ingrained at an early age the entitlement.

 

[T Town Tommy]

Income redistibution, huh? Catchy phrase ... and one that works on both ends of the spectrum. Is it OK when the redistribution sends money to the rich, instead of the poor? The stock market is higher than it has ever been and the wealthy benefit as the average worker's wages stagnate -- actually, drop in real dollars -- and prices for basic necessities continue to climb? The disappearance of the middle class is a real thing, as is the rapidly expanding wealth at the top of the economy. If we keep going at this trajectory, what does our society look like in 20 or 30 years? When the inevitable consequences starts to have real and dramatic consequences to those of us who have found our way into the middle class see it all slipping away? It's easy to turn our noses up on the poor who would rather take handouts that do anything that resembles "sacrifice" until 99% of us ARE the poor. Then what?

And yet there are how many jobs in this great country of ours that go unfilled because of the lack of one getting an education or the lack of someone wanting to work based on what their education level actually is? There will always be poor among us... and yes we all have an obligation to assist them through our benevolence. I give a tremendous amount of my salary to organizations designed to assist those less fortunate so don't talk to me about turning my nose to the poor. But there is a difference in assisting those in need who may not be able to do for themselves and those that are fully capable of working and taking care of themselves. But sadly, too many have the attitude that they will just live off the rich through whatever means necessary.