June 2, 2005 by s.z.

I Think It's a Federal Holiday  Hey, it's Norbizness's Second Birthday today (because we believe that blog life begins at conception), and so the site and its proprietor are being honored by some official proclamations.  Stop by and add yours. Here's mine: WHEREAS, Happy Furry Puppy Story Time with Norbizness has been credited with inventing and popularizing the nickname "Doughy Pantload" as an affectionate moniker for the Corner's best-loved personality (not counting Sodomy Derb, Kathryn Jean Lisa Loopner, or new fan favorite JohnPod NormanSon); And WHEREAS we think that nickname was pretty funny (and probably made Jonah cry); BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED THAT Norb can have the Lucianne Goldberg novel that Anntichrist S. Coulter gave me after I'm done with it.  6:42:15 AM

Planned Parenthood Involved in Child Molesting, Rape, Selling Baby Parts   The A.P. reports: Ruling may open door for criminal prosecution of Planned Parenthood INDIANAPOLIS - Planned Parenthood of Indiana must turn over to the state the medical records of clients under the age of 14, a judge ruled Tuesday, clearing the path for the state to pursue a criminal investigation of the organization. Marion Superior Court Judge Kenneth Johnson rejected a preliminary injunction sought by the reproductive health care provider and sided with the attorney general's office in its quest to examine the medical records of 84 Planned Parenthood clients who appear to have had sex while under the age of 14, in violation of Indiana's child molesting law. The state wants to examine the medical records to see if any laws were broken, Schneider said. Asked if the state was pursuing a neglect investigation against Planned Parenthood, she replied, ''The whole purpose of seeking certain records is to pursue a neglect investigation.'' So, it's not about protecting children from child molesters, it's about prosecuting Planned Parenthood -- except that's not what the judge said when he ruled that Planned Parenthood had to give up the records, despite the fact that this would violate the clients' doctor-patient confidentiality. ''The great public interest in the reporting, investigation and prosecution of child abuse trumps even the patient's interest in privileged communication with her physicians because, in the end, both the patient and the state are benefited by the disclosure,'' Johnson wrote. Yeah, giving a girl's medical records to the attorney general will benefit her, in that she (and other girls) will be too ashamed to go to Planned Parenthood for birth control pills or treatment for STDs, and so the sluts will just stop having underage sex -- or will have to deal with STDs and pregnancy, and thus be punished for having sex, as God intended. (None of the 84 Indiana clients under the age of 14 had an abortion, they merely received "services usually required only by patients who are sexually active" -- so presumably some of them could even have been boys.) Anyway, Planned Parenthood says it complies with the law that says that anyone suspecting child abuse must report it to the authorities.  But Indiana law also says that sexual activity with a child under the age of 14 is child molesting, no matter the age of the partner -- and the AG's office suspects that PP hasn't been reporting all instances of underage sex to the authorities, which is why it wants to pursue a criminal investigation of PP.  Many of the these children probably did have sex with partners who were several years older than they were, and were therefore taken advantage of due to the inequality inherent in the relationship (and in these cases, the older partner should be prosecuted, IMHO).  However, others probably had relationships with kids near their own ages.  Should PP report to the state each  instances of a 13-year girl having sex with her 13-year-old boyfriend? If so, will Indiana prosecute both kids for molesting each other? And is it better that these kids don't get birth control pills and treatment for STDs because of fear that their records will be turned over to the cops, or is it better to violate the children's privacy and medical confidentiality in order to prosecute PP for not complying fully with the letter of the law?  I guess we'll see what the courts decide. P.S.  Here's Michelle Malkin's take on it: THE PREDATORS OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD The Indiana attorney general's office has been putting the heat on Planned Parenthood in its investigation of explosive charges that the abortion providers failed to report incidents of child molestation to authorities, and the state just got a judicial green light. [snip 4 paragraphs from the NY Times story on the case] Kansas has undertaken a similar investigation. Background on the cases here. This should be front-page news..  While the Indiana AG may have been inspired by Kansas's Phill Kline, at least Indiana is being somewhat honest by stating that they want the records in order to prosecute Planned Parenthood, not to protect children from child rapists. Oh, and since Michelle's background info on the cases comes from "Life Dynamics," you should probably take it with a truckload of salt. Here's just a little background info on Life Dynamics: Mark Crutcher, President of Life Dynamics Inc. of Texas, uses sophisticated and deceptive tactics to collect and disseminate personal information on providers in order to target them for harassment and possibly violence. He uses 4,000 “Spies for Life” to gather information and infiltrate abortion clinics. Crutcher concocted the “baby parts racket” story, which involved Life Dynamics in illegal corporate espionage and the reported fabrication of evidence against providers (according to his spy Dean Alberty). More about the baby parts story: Life Dynamics' latest tactic is outlined in its pamphlet, "Baby Parts Marketing." This sensationalist tract describes a litany of fetuses allegedly dissected alive and sold in pieces to a secret research industry. Testimony concerning this was provided by Lawrence D. Alberty, Jr., who later admitted to 20/20 that Life Dynamics had paid him $10,000 to work undercover in one of the clinics. The Times reported that Alberty admitted he had fabricated claims he made on a video for Life Dynamics. Yet those incriminating details are no longer relevant, because Life Dynamics got what it wanted: Congressional hearings. And in 1995, ZMag reported that: Life Dynamics is a three-pronged project. Crutcher uses press and local health department reports, plus all manner of clinic surveillance and infiltration, to compile potentially incriminating data on doctors and clinics. He recruits “post-abortive” women who might want to sue doctors for medical malpractice, and he says he has a list of 600 personal injury attorneys on call for possible lawsuits. LDI brags that it uses “spies, counterspies, provocateurs, disinformation, and misdirection to ferret out information on abortionists and clinics.” Last year Crutcher and associates posed as something called Project Choice and convinced the National Coalition of Abortion Providers to let them do a nationwide survey of abortion doctors' views on the profession. There is no telling how much personal information Life Dynamics culled about abortion providers. It was Life Dynamics' info that allegedly prompted AG Kline's investigation in Kansas. LD had women anonymously call Planned Parenthood offices and say that they were 13-year-olds pregnant by their 22-year-old boy friends -- and since the clinic didn't report this to the authorities, Life Dynamics claims that this proves that PP is in league with child rapists, and gave copies of their tapes to various AGs, including Kline.  Kline won't say if this is what actually triggered his investigation and demand for the records of all women having late-term abortions in Kansas, but his efforts did start just two months after his efforts to hire a Life Dynamics lawyer fell through.  Oh, and PP says that it invites callers to come in for an interview, and during the in-person meeting they ask about the relationship and the boyfriend's age -- and if had been confirmed that the girl was 13 and the guy was 22, the clinic would have filed a report with social services.  PP also says whole investigation thing is just about Kline's efforts to stop legal abortions.   Hey, maybe Life Dynamics is involved in the Indiana case too.  It might make a good front page story, all right.    5:39:33 AM

Fighting For Our Lives, And a Tax Break Our friend Crooks and Liars writes a letter to Randall Terry over at the General's place.  We know that Randall is a busy guy, what with all the scared young girls at Planned Parenthood to harass, and the political career (and the new radio show that C&L tells us about), but we hope he finds the time to reply to his humble admirer, C&L. We don't know about you, but whenever we think of Randall Terry, we think about pond scum, and that liquid that leaks out of the trash bag onto to your foot, and earwigs, but eventually we think of Alan Keyes, because (a) Alan is almost as big a wingnut as Randall; (b) Alan was there beside Randall in Pinellas Park for a couple of weeks, helping Randall to harangue Jeb Bush; and (c) like Randall, Alan is deeply involved with conservative fund raisers/marketers William Greene, Phil Sheldon, and Philip Zodhiates, as we explained earlier. In fact, on Randall's page (The Death of Terri Schindler Must Not be in Vain), about why you should give Greene and Sheldon's RightMarch more money even though Terri is dead, Randall says, "Finally, as you may know, we spent an enormous sum of money on buses, rental cars, hotel rooms, feeding people, press release costs, airplane tickets for Alan Keyes and others ... ."  And airplane tickets for Alan don't come cheap! Anyway, since C&L is checking up on Randall, we thought it would be nice to see what Alan is up to.  Fortunately, Renew America has the scoop in a Letter from Alan Keyes announcing the Virginia Life & Liberty PAC: Dear Committed Conservative: In our beloved America, we today are literally fighting for our lives! Wow, apparently liberals are literally trying to kill Alan Keyes and other committed conservatives, presumably just because Alan loves America so much.  This could be serious! On all fronts, our inalienable rights – first among which is the right to life – stand violated. With the innocent unborn; with the vulnerable aged, disabled and infirm; with the human person in the first stages of miraculous, embryonic development – there is now an appalling willingness among many of our fellow Americans to disregard the principle of sanctity of life that has informed the whole history of our Republic.   So, only the committed conservative unborn, terminally ill, and zygotes are actually in danger.  I'm not so concerned now.  Oh, but wait, Alan is also worried about those committed conservatives who have lost all higher brain functions -- since that could be a large segment of the religious right, maybe Alan has cause for alarm.   All of us know Terri was not receiving extraordinary intervention, merely what each of us requires to live – food and water.  And none of us can chew or swallow for years at a time, and so we all get our nutrition and liquid from a tube in our stomachs.  . She was responsive, and alert – and loved dearly by her parents and siblings.  Yes, and we all know how alert and responsive a person can be when most of their brain has been replaced by spinal fluid.  We've all seen the brain scan that shows the poor woman's shrunken brain.  And we know that brain cells do not grow back -- we all know that. Six years ago, the same situation confronted Hugh Finn in Virginia.  Well, his wife faced a situation similar to Michael Schiavo's, in that her husband was in a persistent vegetative state for several years, and his doctors told her that he would never get any better.  She said he wouldn't want to continue to live that way, and asked to have the feeding tube removed, but his Catholic family disagreed, and took their case to various pro-life groups and politicians, who tried various legal methods to keep the tube inserted.  But eventually the Supreme Court of Virginia "provided a definitive legal decision on the issue of law and ruled that Michele Finn had legal authority to order the removal of Hugh Finn's feeding tube; and on October 1, 1998, the feeding tube was withdrawn, and eight days later Hugh Finn died."  And then, in 1999, the VA State Senate ruled that "these difficult circumstances have caused great pain to the entire family as well as considerable financial expense to resolve their respective good faith beliefs and objectives; and the Finn family should not be required to carry the financial burden incurred in the pursuit of legal due process or the ensuing legislative and public attention to this matter."  So, the state awarded Mrs. Finn $48,000; Hugh Finn's brother John, who fought Michele's decision, was awarded $10,000.  So, yes, the cases were similar, in that the same kind of groups that involved themselves in the Schiavos' family matters also involved themselves in the Finns' family matters. This tragic precedent in the American euthanasia movement made Terri more vulnerable to court-ordered homicide, just as our failure to protect Terri’s precious life now increases the threat to other defenseless elderly, ill and disabled Americans.  The Florda court didn't rely on any precedent set by the Finn case, as far as I know, and the only increased "threat" resulting form the Schiavo case will be to those who have signed living wills saying that they don't want to be kept alive via a feeding tube if they're ever in a PV state.  So, Alan just tell us what the heck you want. The chain of death, of judicially-sanctioned murder, must stop!  Politicians and judges must be held accountable by the electorate – and we must show far greater determination and deeper commitment to protect innocent life than those who would steal it from the weak and helpless.  We need to start TODAY removing as many of Republican-In-Name-Only (RINO) legislators as we can – targeting first the upcoming June 14, 2005 primaries in Virginia, then moving on to the Florida legislature, for their callous failure to protect Terri!  Cool!  We whack those RINO legislators!  We whack them good!  And then we hold the judges accountable -- PERMANENTLY!  Anything you say, Alan! Or, Alan, is what you really want is to work up the Terri Schiavo base with claims that lives are all in danger so that they will donate money to help Virigina's far-right lunatic fringe in the upcoming elections? Virginia and its Republican Party have a moral debt to pay in the euthanasia fight, particularly because of the Hugh Finn case.  We need to help Virginia pro-lifers vote out as many RINO Virginia legislators implicated in Hugh’s death as we can on June 14!  I have been asked by my Virginia conservative friends to help with this accountability effort.  I assume that Alan will be renumerated for his help, since that seems to be his M.O.  What is especially volatile about the June 14, 2005 Virginia primary elections is that in 2004, 19 RINOs (Republicans-in-Name-Only) in the House of Delegates abandoned anti-tax pledges during a budget stalemate with the more liberal Virginia State Senate (not up for election until 2007).  [...] These 19 RINOs voted with the Democrats to place a staggering new $1 billion tax burden on Virginians.  Many of them are the same RINOs who abandoned the principle of life and voted to pay legal fees to Michele Finn to have her husband killed by the state back in 1999.  So, it's not really about Terri or Hugh Finn or poor, persecuted zygotes, it's about taxes?  And Alan is just pushing emotional buttons to try to get the Terri Schiavo people to donate money to this effort to elect legislators who won't raise taxes for the rich?  I am shocked, SHOCKED! Please join me in this latest crusade to protect vulnerable Americans like Terri Schindler Schiavo, Hugh Finn and all the disabled, innocent unborn and the frail elderly, and to increase our liberty through lower taxes and responsible government.  Join our effort by contacting Daniel Gray at our new Virginia Life and Liberty PAC, and please, CLICK HERE TO CONTRIBUTE the financial support we need to elect legislators with the grit and the guts to truly fight for Life & Liberty.  And the best way to protect vulnerable Americans like Terri and Hugh (and the zygotes and the frail old people) is to "return the current $1.3 billion surplus back to Commonwealth taxpayers," and forbid government agencies from providing Medicaid benefits to illegal aliens.  So, donate to this PAC, like Alan asked you to.  Do it for Terri. 3:33:18 AM