A temporary restraining order has been issued preventing an anti-abortion group from releasing any video of leaders of a California company that provides fetal tissue to researchers. The group is the same one that previously released three covertly shot videos of a Planned Parenthood leader discussing the sale of aborted fetuses for research.
The Los Angeles Superior Court order issued Tuesday prohibits the Center for Medical Progress from releasing any video of three high-ranking StemExpress officials taken at a restaurant in May. It appears to be the first legal action prohibiting the release of a video from the organization.
The Center for Medical Progress has released three surreptitiously recorded videos to date that have riled anti-abortion activists. The Senate is expected to vote before its August recess on a Republican effort to bar federal aid to Planned Parenthood in the aftermath of the videos’ release. (Read more from “Disgusting Judicial Cover-Up: Courts Bans Playing of Horrific Planned Parenthood Videos” HERE)
Caught red-handed selling fetal body parts in a series of videos that are still being released, Planned Parenthood has turned to crisis communications firm SKDKnickerbocker to control the damage. Appropriately, one of the firm’s top reps is Hilary Rosen, famous for ridiculing Ann Romney for being a stay-at-home mom. In 2012, the Democratic strategist said on CNN during the presidential campaign that the wife of Mitt Romney had “never worked a day in her life.” Ann Romney responded by setting up a Twitter account and tweeting, “I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work.” The outrage was deafening, forcing Rosen to issue an apology.
If Planned Parenthood is trying to make themselves appear more likable, Rosen is a strange choice. She “garnered widespread hatred on the Internet” as the CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America for quashing Napster and other file-sharing services. And during an interview in 2010, she brazenly boasted of her lack of ethics in conducting business: “When I gave $1,000 or $2,000 to a lawmaker, I wanted him to listen to my business proposition. And when I helped organize an event that raised $50,000 or $100,000, you bet I expected their vote. Why else do it?”
Also, SKDKnickerbocker’s managing director is Democratic PR flak Anita Dunn, who has said Mao Zedong, the Chinese Communist revolutionary and mass murdering dictator, is one of her favorite philosophers. Considering how many millions Zedong is responsible for murdering, as well as the babies who lost their lives to abortion due to communist China’s one-child per family policy, Dunn clearly wasn’t chosen to help soften Planned Parenthood’s position on selling fetal body parts.
Dunn, incidentally, is married to DC lawyer Robert Bauer who tried but failed to get “the Department of Justice to prosecute conservative critics and to go after TV networks for running ads connecting Obama to radical bomber Bill Ayers.”
By its selection of the far left Democratic PR agency SKDKnickerbocker, Planned Parenthood has made it clear it does not intend to budge an inch on the horrific practices it is accused of. Instead of backing off on dismembering fetal body parts and selling them, we can expect to hear their PR flaks continue to ignore and deflect the incriminating statements made by abortion doctors in the undercover videos.
Their goal is to keep both the taxpayer money and the income from the sale of fetal body parts flowing into their coffers. In order to do that, they must convince everyone that the generous amounts Planned Parenthood makes from the body parts sales are not profitable but mere costs — contrary to the frank discussion about profits the abortion doctors are caught on video addressing. They will also have to make the case that the discussions caught on video which sound like partial-birth abortion procedures were misinterpreted, and that references to changing the procedures without getting patient approval were also misinterpreted.
They also hired a leftwing polling firm to conduct a laughably slanted poll showing that Americans actually feel pretty warm and fuzzy about sending their tax dollars to this human body shop because, gosh, Planned Parenthood is really mostly about cancer screenings and holding the hands of pregnant women and singing “We are the World’ or something.
In the wake of the videos and the ensuing landslide of eyewitness testimony about the dark business of Planned Parenthood, SKDKnickerbocker has a tall public relations order to fill, especially considering there are more videos to be released which may involve more incriminating statements. A tall order but not quite impossible: The mainstream media is on Planned Parenthood’s side, and the millions of unborn babies threatened by Planned Parenthood don’t have a powerhouse PR agency. (Re-posted with permission from the author, “Planned Parenthood Hires PR Crisis Firm of Hilary Rosen, Known for Dissing Stay-At-Home Moms”, originally appeared HERE)
Just two days ago, Restoring Liberty posted a story about volcanoes erupting worldwide within minutes of each other. Eruptions were reported in Indonesia, Columbia, Japan and Chile along with a 7.0 magnitude quake in Indonesia and a 6.3 quake near the Redoubt Volcano southwest of Anchorage, Alaska.
Confounding geologists, Oklahoma and southern Kansas have seen a mysterious spike in earthquakes with dozens registered with USGS over the past week, some exceeding 4 magnitude on the Richter scale. Here’s a snapshot of those earthquakes over the past seven days:
Also notable are several earthquakes in the southeast corner of Missouri and western edge of Tennessee, all along the the Mississippi River border.
Finally, here is a snapshot of the earthquakes exceeding 4.5 magnitude over the last seven days along the Pacific Rim:
Volcano Bursts Into Life in Mexico With Large Spurt of Ash and Steam
By Associated Press. Mexico’s National Disaster Prevention Centre said in its daily report that the volcano registered a total of 80 low intensity exhalations and six explosions yesterday, releasing plumes of smoke between 1.5 and two kilometres high.
Authorities are urging people not to get close to the volcano and particularly to its crater. (Read more from this story HERE)
6.3 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Alaska Near Active Volcano
By RT. A 6.3-magnitude earthquake has struck in Alaska, some 42 miles southwest of the active Redoubt Volcano, the US Geological Survey (USGS) has said.
Notably, the earthquake also struck near Mt. Katmai, the site of the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.
The epicenter was 9 miles south of Mt. Iliamna, another volcano in the area, the Alaska Dispatch News reported.
According to the USGS, the quake hit about 141 miles southwest of Anchorage. (Read more from this story HERE)
By Sun Star Manila. At least eight volcanic earthquakes rocked Mount Bulusan in Sorosgon, signifying that the volcano continues to show signs of restiveness, the Philippine Institute of Volcanolgy and Seismology (Phivolcs) said Wednesday.
Phivolcs-Bicol resident volcanologist Ed Laguerta said the quakes and the swelling of the volcano’s edifice are signs that pressure is building up in the volcano’s vent.
Aside from eight volcanic quakes, Phivolcs instruments recorded for the past 24-hour observation period slight inflationary trend at the volcano’s edifice during the precise leveling surveys.
Alert Level 1 (abnormal) remains hoisted over the volcano. (Read more from this story HERE)
By Hillary Ojeda. Only last week, scientists recorded the largest explosion at Peru’s most active volcano, Ubinas, in the Moquegua region of Peru.
Now, scientists have recorded an ascent of magma within the volcano, reports El Comercio.
The explosion last week resulted in the emission of large rocks (some the size of small cars) which frightened the local communities. Ash and small rocks up to two centimeters in diameter made their way to the communities of Querapi, Ubinas, Sacohaya, Tonohaya, Anascapa, Escacha and San Miguel, according to the mayor of Ubinas, Luis Concha. (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-30 03:58:002016-04-11 10:58:19Growing Geologic Unrest: More Earthquakes, Volcanoes Along the Pacific Rim; US Midwest Hit, Too
Since the day President Obama was elected, gun owners have been on an unprecedented buying spree, purchasing everything from .22 ammunition to every kind of semi-automatic firearm available.
Their fears are not unwarranted — especially because, for a while, the federal government seemed to be racing private owners to buy the ammo first.
Closer examination shows that some fears of federal activity on this front are overblown. Others, though, are deeply rooted in legitimate concerns.
While Obama claims to support “common-sense” gun laws, he has made high-profile public announcements telegraphing his anti-gun intentions and engaged in behind-the-scenes gun control — tweaking government regulations to deny gun rights to veterans, seeking the same for Social Security recipients, and using the ATF to ban certain types of popular ammo. Calling guns more dangerous than terrorism, Obama recently indicated he’ll devote the rest of his time as president to gun control.
But one event in particular fed fears of back-door government gun control: the unprecedented purchase of ammunition by the feds.
In early 2013, the Internet blazed with news that the Department of Homeland Security intended to purchase over 1.6 billion rounds of pistol and rifle ammunition. The order would fulfill DHS requirements for five years, reportedly. DHS has 55,471 employees authorized to carry firearms, which comes to about 5,800 rounds per year, per employee.
For perspective, during the first year of the war on terror, approximately 72 million rounds were expended in Iraq and another 21 million in Afghanistan — about 2,000 rounds per war fighter. Thus, giving DHS agents a much larger quota of 5,000 rounds did seem extreme.
Some people asserted the feds deliberately intended to dry up the private market for ammunition. Lawmakers demanded answers. Yet the overall requisition, in context, may not have been unreasonable.
[Listen to a recent interview with the author below:]
The largest order, 750 million rounds, came from DHS’s Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) for instruction purposes. Another 650 million rounds were slated for Inspections and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. FLETC public affairs director Peggy Dixon said at the time that the purchase request was “a ceiling. It does not mean that we will buy, or require, the full amounts of either contract.” FLETC in fact uses approximately 20 million training rounds per year, and overall, actual DHS purchases have declined continually since 2009. In 2014, DHS-planned purchases were 75.1 million rounds, down from 84.4 million in 2013.
But there was more. In 2012, the Social Security Administration published a requisition for 174,000 rounds of hollow point pistol ammo — a particularly lethal type and certainly not suited for target shooting. Why on earth would the SSA need it? For that matter, why does SSA need a police force, much less highly trained SWAT teams? Do they anticipate an armed revolt by elderly Social Security recipients upset with their latest cost of living increases? Do they fear an anti-government conspiracy launched over tepid coffee in the reading lounges of retirement communities across the country? Given Obama’s attitude toward the elderly (e.g. “Granny, take the pill”) they may have reason to fear.
Again, though, many such purchases are based on a justifiable rationale — or at least justifiable for the size of the government we have. (Whether it should be that large in the first place is a very different question.)
An unfortunate consequence of massive government growth and expansion is the requirement for a law enforcement presence to oversee it all. One would not think the Social Security Administration or the Department of Agriculture, for example, would need a large law enforcement presence.
But welfare and food stamp fraud is epidemic. Some gangsters engaged in these activities are as dangerous as drug traffickers – and are involved, often, in both. Determined welfare fraud rings connected to organized crime are ripping off billions of taxpayer dollars. One of the most dangerous federal law enforcement jobs is — believe it or not — ole’ Smokey Bear, the National Park Service rangers, since a great deal of criminal activity takes place within the peaceful aura of life in the woods. (Marijuana fields, for example, are guarded by trigger-happy, AK-47 toting goons.)
At the same time, fears of an omnipresent federal law enforcement infrastructure are justified. The growing federal police force contains the potential to evolve into a police state.
The increasing use of SWAT-type raids against established businesses like Gibson Guitar, Duncan Outdoors and Mountain Pure Water Co., and countless smaller raids against other non-threatening targets for essentially routine administrative matters reinforce the belief among many that such a police state is just around the corner, if not here already. Innocent people have been killed in some of these unwarranted raids.
It is not the amount of ammunition purchases posing the threat. Instead, it is the ominous growth of federal law enforcement under a president who abuses power and ignores the constitutional limits of his office.
Obama has done his best to induce panic among gun owners. This, more than anything else, has created the shortages – driven by an unprecedented increase in private market demand. At the height of the frenzy, the NRA provided a good analysis in its American Rifleman magazine. While ammunition manufacturers are loath to admit exact production numbers, the NRA found that between 2007 and 2012, excise taxes on ammunition purchases doubled.
Many other reports tell a similar story, but it is easy to understand with a simple example. There are over 80 million gun owners in the U.S. If every single one went out and bought just 100 rounds – barely enough for one afternoon on the range – it would require 8 billion rounds of ammo. But many gun owners have been stockpiling, and retailers seek to purchase large quantities to capitalize on higher demand and prices. The shooting sports, meanwhile, have enjoyed a revival, even on college campuses.
Despite the unprecedented explosion in demand, the shortage is now largely past. After producing round the clock for years, ammunition manufacturers are now able to fulfill orders for most of the popular calibers, albeit at higher prices. Even the popular .22, long unavailable after supplies of other ammo reappeared, is finally coming back on the shelves.
While the ammo shortage was not caused by excessive government purchases, Obama can nonetheless take credit for creating justifiable panic among private citizens that prompted an unprecedented ammo buying spree that cleared retailer shelves for years. It would not be at all surprising to see another uptick in demand if Obama makes good on his threat to push more gun control.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-30 03:57:482016-04-11 10:58:19Where Have All the Bullets Gone?
A federal judge threatened to hold IRS Commissioner John Koskinen in contempt Wednesday after the IRS failed to produce, as ordered, newly recovered emails of former IRS official Lois Lerner.
U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan had ordered the IRS on July 1 to turn over Lerner emails on a weekly basis in response to a lawsuit by the watchdog group Judicial Watch.
The lawsuit focused on the 2013 scandal in which the IRS acknowledged agents had improperly singled out Tea Party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 elections.
However at a U.S. District Court hearing in Washington Wednesday, Sullivan threatened to hold officials, including Koskinen, in contempt for not producing the documents as ordered every Monday.
“If there is further noncompliance, I will haul into court the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service to show cause why that person should not be personally held in contempt of court. I can’t make that any clearer,” the judge told Geoffrey Klimas, the Justice Department attorney representing the IRS, according to the minutes published on Judicial Watch’s website. (Read more from “Contempt Warning: Federal Judge Threatens to Hold IRS Chief in Contempt” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-30 03:57:412016-04-11 10:58:19Contempt Warning: Federal Judge Threatens to Hold IRS Chief in Contempt
Reporters and politicos covered-up Bill Clinton’s ongoing affair in 2008 as Hillary competed with Barack Obama for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.
During the Clinton impeachment investigation and trial as reports and accusations of Clinton sexually assaulting and raping women piled up, it was said by his liberal defenders that America needs to be more like the French when it comes to affairs by its leaders. Well, we’ve seen how having affairs in high office worked out (badly) for the French.
But at least the French knew what was going on. In the 2008 campaign, the media chose to keep from voters the crucial information of Bill Clinton yet again breaking faith with his marriage vows.
It was the January 2010 publication of the book Game Change by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann which mentioned the affair that prompted the confession by Huffington Post reporter Mayhill Fowler that she knew about but did not report on the affair in February 2008. (Actually, it was a promotional confession as Fowler was pushing a new e-book of her own, Notes from a Clueless Journalist: Media, Bias and the Great Election of 2008, that was being released that week.)
In (2015) because of the media’s protective non-reporting we do not know whether Bill Clinton carried on his affair throughout his wife’s term as secretary of State, whether the national security implications of the affair were raised during her confirmation and whether Bill Clinton has yet learned to not sexually assault women. (Read more from “Reporters Covered up Bill Clinton Affair During Hillary’s 2008 Presidential Campaign” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-30 03:57:112016-04-11 10:58:19Reporters Covered up Bill Clinton Affair During Hillary’s 2008 Presidential Campaign
Campus officials across the nation have labeled the phrase “America is the land of opportunity” offensive, but the madness does not stop there. Even the word “American” is a problem to some campus officials now.
A “Bias-Free Language Guide” posted by the University of New Hampshire declares the word American “problematic.”
“North Americans often use ‘American’ which usually, depending on the context, fails to recognize South America,” the guide states. “American assumes the U.S. is the only country inside these two continents.”
The guide recommends terms such as “U.S. citizen,” “resident of the U.S.” and “North American or South American” as “preferred.”
Many other innocuous words are also listed on the guide as “problematic,” notes Campus Reform, which first reported on the guide. (Read more from “This University Advises Campus to Avoid Using Word ‘American'” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-30 03:57:042016-04-11 10:58:20This University Advises Campus to Avoid Using Word ‘American’
It appears as if Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is using ISIS as a pretext to attack the PKK. Ankara just announced that its air base at Incirlik will soon be open to coalition forces, presumably to fight ISIS, but the moment Turkey started bombing, it targeted Kurdish positions. Those attacks not only open a new era of death and destruction, but also bring an end to all possibilities of resolving Turkey’s Kurdish issue non-violently.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced that, “[A] second wave operation against Daesh [ISIS] in Syria was started. Just after that, a very comprehensive operation was carried out against the camps of the terrorist organization PKK in northern Iraq. I am glad that the targets were hit with great success. We have given instructions to start a third wave operation in Syria and a second wave operation in Iraq.”
The “great success” of the Turkish military has brought much damage and injury to even Kurdish civilians — including children. The Kurdish newspaper Rudaw reported that two Kurdish villagers in Duhok’s Berwari region were carried to hospital in the aftermath of a Turkish artillery bombardment in the Amediye region. One of the victims was 12 years old. The second victim lost a leg in an airstrike. Four members of the PKK were killed and several others were injured.
Shortly after military operations against the PKK started, access to the websites of pro-Kurdish newspapers and news agencies was denied “by decree of court.” These websites — including Fırat News Agency (ANF), Dicle News Agency (DIHA), Hawar News Agency (ANHA), Ozgur Gundem newspaper, Yuksekova News, Rudaw and BasNews — are still blocked in Turkey.
ISIS, meanwhile, has not so far made any statement regarding Turkey’s so-called bombings of ISIS in any of its media outlets. (Read more from “Turkey Using Its Unpopular Bombing Raids on ISIS as Cover to Kill Iraqi Kurds” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-30 03:56:532016-04-11 10:58:20Turkey Using Its Unpopular Bombing Raids on ISIS as Cover to Kill Iraqi Kurds
By Daniel Halper. Secretary of State John Kerry testified on Capitol Hill [yesterday] the U.S. government will not be revealing the contents of secret side deals with Iran to the American people. Senator Tom Cotton wanted to know why it can’t be made public.
Watch the exchange:
“I’d like to stick with you, Secretary Kerry,” Cotton said. “Why can’t we confirm or deny the content of these agreements in public? Why is this classified? It’s not a sensitive U.S. government document.” (Read more from “Kerry: We Can’t Reveal Contents of Secret Side Deals to American People” HERE)
Congress: Nuke Deal Loopholes Bolster Illicit Iranian-N. Korean Alliance
By Adam Kredo. Iran’s nuclear relationship with North Korea is likely to grow due to a recent nuclear accord, according to experts and members of Congress, who warned in a hearing that loopholes in the deal would facilitate illicit trade between the rogue countries.
Iran and North Korea have long cooperated on the nuclear front, sharing nuclear technology and ballistic missile construction plans. Reports over the years have indicated that Iranian officials were present for missile launchings in North Korea and that officials from both countries remain in close contact.
Other reports have indicated that Iran houses parts of its nuclear infrastructure within North Korea in order to hide progress and perform testing away from Western inspectors.
While the nuclear deal is meant to dampen such ties, lawmakers and experts warned Tuesday that the deal contains a range of loopholes that will help Tehran and Pyongyang race forward with their nuclear cooperation.
The nuclear accord “creates conditions and incentives that are highly likely to result in the expansion of what is already an extensive and profoundly dangerous Iran-North Korea partnership in proliferation,” Claudia Rosett, journalist-in-residence for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), testified before lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. (Read more from “Congress: Nuke Deal Loopholes Bolster Illicit Iranian-N. Korean Alliance” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-30 03:56:402016-04-11 10:58:20Kerry: We Can’t Reveal Contents of Secret Side Deals to American People [+video]
Planned Parenthood got caught. They’re shocked that we’re shocked at what is finally revealed. Dismembering babies, delivering them dead, and bartering the sale of baby body parts.
Video records Planned Parenthood officials nibbling salad, sipping fruit of the vine, nonchalantly pondering where to spend their profits. More wine? Fast cars? These are horrifying videos, with many more to come, one recorded over a nice meal with a doctor sipping, explaining snipping, and cutting, and butchering babies so they can harvest the beating heart that was just snuffed out, the lungs, the liver… all in the most profitable manner. Just another day at the office.
A civilized nation does not tolerate this. Even friends saying they may still be pro-choice are sickened by the abortion industry’s revelations. As one friend just emailed me, “This is not what we signed up for when told abortion would be safe, legal, and rare. I can not believe this is happening, selling baby parts.”
Can you imagine the outrage on the Left if these were puppy parts?
How can the origins of Planned Parenthood and the philosophy of its founder be tolerated, much less praised and celebrated – and blessed – by the Left? (Read more from “Sarah Palin: Why Planned Parenthood Must Be Shut Down for Good” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-07-30 03:56:332016-04-11 10:58:20Sarah Palin: Why Planned Parenthood Must Be Shut Down for Good
