Obama’s Ambassador Tells LGBT in Czech Republic that US is their Ally

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The “Photo of the Week” currently featured on the State Department’s official “Dip Note” blog shows U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic Norman Eisen and staff members taking part in a ‘gay pride’ parade in Prague on August 18.

Speaking at the opening of the event, Eisen told LGBT activists in the Czech Republic that the United States was their ally.

The parade was part of the second annual “Prague Pride” festival, which featured activities such as a “Rainbow Karaoke Party,” “Children’s Day with Picnic,” and “Gay Speed Dating.”

“The theme of this year festival is ‘Bringing our colours together’ with the aim to introduce the general public to the LGBT communities that are usually hidden from the public eye, such as LGBT Roma (gypsies), disabled or transgender persons,” according to the Prague Pride website.

Alongside Prague Mayor Bohuslav Svoboda, Eisen delivered remarks at the event’s opening reception on August 13: “I am truly honored to be here today, representing the United States and President Obama in the effort to ensure the rights of the global LGBT community,” said Eisen.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Pakistanis Demanding Death Penalty for Christian Girl with Downs Syndrome for Blasphemy

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Pakistani Police say an 11-year old disabled girl was arrested last week in a Christian area of the capital Islamabad, after a crowd of people demanded that she be punished for allegedly desecrating pages of the Muslim holy book. Here’s a BBC report on the girl’s current status:

War on Women Rhetoric Fails, Romney Leads Obama With Married Women

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The War on Women rhetoric of the Obama campaign, Planned Parenthood and other abortion backers appears to be failing — at least with married women voters, according to new polling data.

A new Washington Post/ABC’s poll finds married women prefer pro-life Mitt Romney over pro-abortion Barack Obama on a 55-40 percentage point majority. Christian Heinze, a reporter for The Hill, indicates that means Romney is running ahead of the pace at which John McCain ran against Obama in 2008.

“Compare that with 2008 exit polls when Obama won married women with children, 51%-47%, while McCain won married women with no kids 53%-44%,” he said. “Romney’s 15% margin soundly beats both numbers.”

Heinze also notes that the new numbers put Romney where pro-life President George W. Bush was in 2004, when he won his bid for re-election.

“That 15% is identical to George W. Bush’s 2004 performance when he beat John Kerry among married women, 57%-42%, so there’s good precedent for Romney with his current margin,” he writes today.

Read more from this story HERE.

Childcare cost: Day care expense rivals college cost, fuels social problems

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Photo credit: Senator Kate Lundy

According to a new study from ChildCare Aware of America, a childcare research and advocacy group, center-based care for an infant costs more, on average, than in-state tuition at a four-year public college. The price tag ranged from about $4,600 in Mississippi to $15,000 in Massachusetts, and was more than annual median rent payments in 22 states. In some of the more expensive states the cost of day care for infants equals about half of the median income for single moms. And those numbers drop only slightly for children four and older.

“Parents are tapped out,” says Grace Reef, chief of policy and evaluation for ChildCare Aware of America. “They really can’t pay more. It’s not affordable.”

So what does this mean? Over the past week or so, Modern Parenthood has been talking with a number of family and children advocates about the cost of childcare, as well as with a handful of parents. The high price of care, it turns out, often blindsides new parents, and has ripple effects that impact everything from a family’s debt situation to glass ceiling wages to that whole Mommy Wars debate between working and stay at home moms. (Which really starts to look silly in the face of all of this, I might add.)

Ponder, for instance, this fact, shared by Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, co-founder and chief executive of MomsRising.org, a social media site and advocacy group that boasts over a million mom members: Having a new baby is one of the top reasons for a “poverty spill,” the term for what happens when your income dips below what’s needed for food and rent.

The key factor in that “spill” is infant care. Without a paid maternity leave policy the US (reminder – we’re the only developed country in the world that rolls this way), and with only a percentage of employees qualifying for unpaid leave, many moms need to either put baby into day care as soon as possible or quit their jobs. This means a huge drop in income. Add another child and the situation becomes even more dire.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Pat Robertson’s advice – “don’t adopt children”

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While discussing a question about adoption on the 700 Club last week, Pat Robertson disagreed with his co-host and stated that women should not adopt children and “take on someone else’s problems.” He notes that children may be sexually molested or abused in other ways prior to the adoption. At the end of the segment, however, Robertson realizes he stepped in it and admits, “OK, I’m in trouble.”

Here’s a transcript of Pat Robertson’s comments:

A man doesn’t want to take on the United Nations, and a woman has all these various children, blended family, what is it – you don’t know what problems there are. I’m serious. I’ve got a dear friend, an adopted son, a little kid from an orphanage down in Columbia. Child had brain damage, grew up weird. And you just never know what’s been done to a child before you get that child. What kind of sexual abuse has been, what kind of cruelty, what kind of food deprivation, etc. etc. “You don’t have to take on somebody else’s problems. You really don’t. You can help people – we minister to orphans all over the world, we love helping people. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m going to take all the orphans around the world into my home.

Fox News Under Fire, Falsely Asserts Planned Parenthood Doesn’t Do Abortions

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A Fox news anchor is drawing criticism from pro-life advocates for saying in a news report that Planned Parenthood doesn’t do abortions. Moreover, former Judge Andrew Napolitano agreed with the anchor that that was the case.

Anchor Martha MacCallum was conducting a report on the decision by a federal appeals court to allow Texas to continue its effort revoking taxpayer funds from the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

“So judge obviously there has been a lot of debate in this country over whether or not the federal government and states should fund Planned Parenthood because they do refer people to and give them counseling with regard to abortion. They don’t perform abortions at Planned Parenthood,” she said to Napolitano, who responded, “Correct.”

“So Planned Parenthood says that most of what we do is outreach to women who need cancer screenings and basic health care, OBGYN health care, we do not provide abortions, we do counsel people, and we do help them, if they say that that’s what they want to do, we help them get there,” MacCallum added.

However, Planned Parenthood’s own figures show it is the biggest abortion business in the nation.

Read more from this story HERE.

Botched Abortion 911 Call: “She’s Bleeding Quite Badly” (+video)

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By Steven Ertelt. The recording of the 911 call from an apparently badly botched abortion last week at an abortion clinic is Dayton has been made public and the details are shocking for a woman who was victimized.

A woman was rushed to the hospital in Dayton, Ohio following a botched late-term abortion that took place at the Women’s Med Center abortion clinic in Dayton. Martin Haskell, who is credit with making the partial-birth abortion procedure a household name, runs the abortion facility that injured the woman.

According to local pro-life advocate who filmed emergency medical personnel rushing to the scene, paramedics loaded a female patient into an awaiting ambulance. Those activists confirmed that the abortion practitioner on duty that day was Roslyn Kade, a long-time associate of Haskell’s.

Now, a 911 recording just released by Operation Rescue reveals that a medical emergency last week involved uncontrolled bleeding on a 37-year old patient.

“She’s bleeding quite bad,” a caller from the Women’s Med Center told the emergency dispatcher. The woman’s current condition remains unknown.

Read more from this story HERE.

Here’s the 911 call from the abortion clinic:

Flesh-eating bacteria survivor Aimee Copeland goes home

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Aimee Copeland was spending her first night at home Wednesday since flesh-eating bacteria forced the amputation of her hands, leg and foot three months ago.

Copeland’s first stop out of rehab was to Longhorn Steakhouse for lunch with her family, said her father, Andy. She then went to her parents’ house in Snellville, Georgia, and relaxed with her sister, Paige, watching Comedy Central while their parents went shopping.

Wednesday night, she will settle into a specially outfitted wing of her parents’ home that was built just for her and donated by a local homebuilder.

The 24-year-old University of West Georgia graduate student was out with friends May 1 at the Little Tallapoosa River, about 50 miles west of Atlanta, when the homemade zip line she was holding snapped. She fell and got a gash in her leg that required 22 staples to close.

Three days later, still in pain, she went to an emergency room, and doctors eventually determined she had necrotizing fasciitis caused by the flesh-devouring bacteria Aeromonas hydrophila.

Read more from this story HERE.

 

Federal Court of Appeals: Texas can cut off funding for Planned Parenthood

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Photo credit: rcbodden

Texas officials are vowing to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood after a federal court sided with the state in a challenge over a new law that bans clinics affiliated with abortion providers from getting money through a health program for low-income women.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans late Tuesday reversed a federal judge’s temporary injunction that was allowing the funding to continue pending an October trial on Planned Parenthood’s challenge to the law.

State officials are seeking to halt money to Planned Parenthood clinics that provide family planning and health services as part of the state’s Women’s Health Program because the Republican-led Texas Legislature passed a law banning funds to organizations linked to abortion providers.

Planned Parenthood provides services like cancer screenings – but not abortions – to about half of the 130,000 low-income Texas women enrolled in the program, which is designed to provide services to women who might not otherwise qualify for Medicaid.

The appeals court’s decision means Texas is now free to impose the ban.

Read more from this story HERE.

Fmr KS AG Phill Kline: Planned Parenthood broke law, wrong to dismiss charges

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Planned Parenthood was investigated for illegal late-term abortion and failure to report child rape as required by law. Evidence obtained revealed that during a time the abortion provider performed hundreds of abortions on children 13 years of age and younger Planned Parenthood only reported one case of child molestation. The evidence included witness statements and reports from former Planned Parenthood employees.

This portion of the case died due to obstruction by the Administration of former Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and former Attorney General Morrison who was recruited by Ms. Sebelius to run for Attorney General. Ms. Sebelius is a political beneficiary of Planned Parenthood.

Other evidence indicated that Planned Parenthood lied about the gestational age of the fetus in order to justify an abortion. Kansas law allowed abortions on a non-viable fetus for any reason. State law, however, severely restricted late-term abortions on viable fetuses.

The case filed against Planned Parenthood alleged that Planned Parenthood falsely reported the gestational age of the fetus in order to claim the fetus was not viable. The evidence demonstrating this conduct was present in every abortion record obtained. These allegations were supported by the expert report of Dr. T. Murphy Goodwin, one of our nation’s premiere neonatologists.

The District Attorney announced today that he was dismissing these charges because it was his opinion that the gestational age stated by Planned Parenthood arguably indicated the fetus was viable. His statement misses the point and indicated he doesn’t understand the case.

First, the District Attorney improperly defines “viability” but more importantly he completely ignores the allegation that Planned Parenthood lied about the gestational age of the fetus.

Read more at Page 2 HERE.