Washington Times' Shocking Exposé of D.C. Paramedic Incompetence

If you're going to have a heart attack, please don't have it in Washington D.C.

This exclusive and detailed report from the Washington Times is absolutely stunning, describing as it does not only the substandard scores and lousy performance of the District of Columbia's paramedics but the attempts of city officials to cover up the scandal rather than fix it.

It is a long story but, I guarantee you'll find it riveting reading.

A few excerpts:

...One of the nation's premier emergency medical professionals, who reviewed the materials at The Times' request, said the deficiencies identified during a sweeping assessment of the city's paramedics posed a safety crisis for the nation's capital.

"Based on what I saw on those videos, there is no question in my mind," said Paul Werfel, director of New York's Stony Brook University's paramedic program and a clinical assistant professor of health sciences. "To be perfectly honest, I think there's a real threat here. The safety of the people of the District of Columbia is at risk. It's a clear and present danger to them."...

The city has about 250 paramedics, and about 175 have been put through the assessment program at a training center in Maryland. The Times obtained test scores for at least 95 of the paramedics. Only three scored in a range to get a passing grade under the national standards for entry-level paramedics.

City officials originally threatened an investigation or legal action to stop The Times from publishing the materials, saying exposing the scores would hurt the city's efforts at improving its oft-criticized paramedic service. But after a further review, D.C. Attorney General Peter J. Nickles said too many people had access to the information to pursue any leak probe or legal action...

The statement issued Wednesday warned that examining the tests "without a thorough understanding of the testing environment and process could lead to misinterpretation of the results" and suggested that the "attacks" by unnamed people were an attempt to thwart the agency's reforms...

The lowest score The Times reviewed, below 40 percent, belonged to a field training officer, the documents stated...

"The performances I saw on these particular tapes I would not accept from people graduating a paramedic course, much less people with years of experience," said Mr. Werfel, a founding member of the board of directors of the National EMS Educators' Association.

"Almost all of them exhibited extremely poor technique," Mr. Werfel said. "Based on the videos I saw, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I was responsible for putting these people on the streets."...

Mr. Werfel cited one test in which a paramedic failed to notice for more than 30 seconds that his patient had gone into cardiac arrest.

The test, unbeknownst to Mr. Werfel, was taken by one of the District's senior emergency medical services administrators.

The department's medical director, Dr. James J. Augustine, who has served in the position since August, reviewed the same test with a Times reporter last month and termed it "perfect," later describing it as a "textbook" response.

But Geoffrey T. Miller, associate director for the research and curriculum development division of prehospital and emergency health care at the University of Miami, said he would also have ordered remediation for the senior EMS administrator - whose identity he was unaware of when he viewed the test. He viewed the video last month in Baltimore while attending a national conference of the Journal of Emergency Medical Services...

Three regional paramedic quality-assurance instructors with knowledge of the District's protocols viewed all the videos obtained by The Times and discussed the results but asked not to be identified because their work brings them into contact with the D.C. fire department.

The three agreed that while there are some competent paramedics on the job, the vast majority seemed deficient in their skills, with one terming more than half of the advanced life support providers "unsafe."...

Today's Posts

Condoms Not the Answer to STD Epidemic

An Unavoidable Crash: The U.S. Constitution vs Transnationalism

Road Trips with Barack Obama: Smiles, Bows and Apologies

New "Hate Crime" Legislation Headed Your Way

It's Not the Beliefs of Miss California That Are Dangerous to the Republic

Is Castro "Playing" Obama?

"Presidential Poison" -- WSJ Editors Take on Team Obama

Condoms Not the Answer to STD Epidemic

Barb Malek, our good friend, literary partner and much-respected pro-life colleague, read a "Midlands Voices" column in the Omaha World Herald last Monday in which a young woman naively suggested that our city's drastically increasing rates of sexually transmitted diseases could be solved by...you guessed it, a few more crates of free condoms and a few more classes in their judicious use.

Barb Malek disagrees. And she does so from a wealth of knowledge. She has some 25 years of experience as a pregnancy counselor, educator, researcher, writer and sidewalk counselor. Barb has been a key leader in the AAA Center for Pregnancy Counseling since its inception and she now serves there as one of its directors.

But beyond knowing, Barb cares. Indeed, she cares enough to spend a tremendous amount of her time helping women deal with the anxieties, shame and long-term physical problems which come with STDs.

And to help other women (and men) effectively avoid those same agonies.

Hers is a "Midlands Voice" you can truly trust.

Her response was, a bit surprisingly, picked up by the WH and printed in today's edition. You can read it here. But since the online editions don't keep these things for long, I also print it below.

Midlands Voices: "Solutions to STD Epidemic Are More Complex Than Condom Use" by Barb Malek.

(The writer, of Omaha, has worked for 23 years with young women facing unintended pregnancies and STDs.)

As the administrator for a pregnancy resource center, I face many young women who are struggling not only with an unexpected pregnancy but also with our local epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases. Chlamydia and gonorrhea are rampant.

However, I don't believe that the answer is as simplistic as making young people more aware of condom use, as Austin Person suggested in his April 20 Midlands Voices essay.

A convincing, statistical argument can be made that increased condom use is not the answer to our STD onslaught. Condoms may help in some cases - but are ineffective in dealing with the spread of disease from anal or oral sex. Some diseases are even spread by skin-to-skin contact outside of the vaginal area. Plus, statistics show that condom use has increased right along with the steady increase of STDs.

If we truly want to see Douglas County's disease rate decrease, we must examine the true causes and put aside personal prejudices and politics in order to address real solutions.

Looking past the rhetoric, it is clear that the rates of STDs have increased along with the rates of sexual activity, especially with the increase in the number of sexual partners. A sexual exposure chart shows that even if a young man or woman has had only one partner, he or she also will be at risk from each of the individuals his or her partner has had sex with.

Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop has said, "When you have sex with someone, you are having sex with everyone they have had sex with for the last 10 years, and everyone they and their partners have had sex with for the last 10 years." It's not an overstatement to say that it is a sexual cesspool out there.

Do condoms reduce the risk of infection? In one way, it must be argued that they do cut down on some exposure. However, it also can be argued that they provide a dangerous placebo that convinces young people that they will be safe from disease and therefore free to be as sexually active as they wish. In actuality, their risk is greatly increased.

Is the answer increased education in the schools? Is that really where young people are getting most of their influence about sexual activity? Recent studies have shown that teens are more impacted in their sexual choices by television, movies and music than they are in school.

In a study done by the University of California-Santa Barbara, it was pointed out that 66 percent of all prime-time shows contained sexual content. Yet, STDs were mentioned only once every 10 hours of viewing. The bulk of the sexual action occurs between unmarried characters, and yet the consequences of pregnancy and disease rarely are shown.

Another study, by the American Journal of Pediatrics, gave alarming statistics connecting the time spent listening to songs with strong sexual content to an increase in risky sexual behavior. Then there is the growing problem of easily accessible Internet pornography. The bottom line is that media often present a picture of sexual activity as beautiful and liberating - without also showing the ugly consequences of disease.

There are no simplistic answers to this problem. Most young women I speak with know about the dangers of sexual activity. They also know about condoms. However, many are fatherless and seeking love wherever they can find it, regardless of the consequences. And some just never thought anything bad could happen to them.

Regardless of personal feelings on the realities or practicality of teaching abstinence, the bottom line is that the rates of STDs and sex outside of marriage are clearly linked.

We all need to ask what we are willing to do to bring this epidemic to an end, even if the answer is not the politically correct one to choose. It will require courage to face the truth, however difficult it might be, and spare the lives and futures of a generation of young people.

An Unavoidable Crash: The U.S. Constitution vs Transnationalism

You'll note that more than one of today's posts concern the sad (and fast) erosion of free speech in America. Here's another.

What Happens When the First Amendment Meets Criminalization of Speech? comes from the able pen of Dr. Theodore Bromund (historian, internationalist, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom) and is found in today's Foundry over at NRO.

As we pointed out on Monday, State Department Legal Advisor nominee Harold Koh’s praise for the “Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials” is misguided in several respects. One of these is that the Convention requires all signatories to criminalize the “counseling” of the commission of the illicit manufacturing of, or trafficking in, firearms.

What would happen if the Senate ratified the Treaty – which President Clinton signed in 1998, and which the U.S. already abides by spirit – without making a reservation against this clause? The dispute would soon make its way into the U.S. court system, to be adjudicated as a conflict between the U.S.’s treaty obligations and the First Amendment of the Constitution: the former calling for the criminalization of speech, the latter proclaiming the right of free speech.

In this conflict, most Americans would side with the First Amendment. But where would Koh stand? In a 2003 article “On American Exceptionalism,” published in the Stanford Law Review, Koh recognizes that the U.S. affords far greater protection than most countries to free speech. For Koh, this is cause for a measure of concern:

"On examination, I do not find this distinctiveness too deeply unsettling to world order. The judicial doctrine of ‘margin of appreciation,’ familiar in European Union law, permits sufficient national variance as to promote tolerance of some measure of this kind of rights distinctiveness."

So, the U.S.’s differences from the rest of the world are not “too deeply unsettling” and, thanks to EU law, can be tolerated to “some measure.” Thank goodness. But how far should they be tolerated? In a footnote, Koh gives his answer:

"...in a globalizing world, our exceptional free speech tradition can cause problems abroad, as, for example, may occur when hate speech is disseminated over the Internet. In my view, however, our Supreme Court can moderate these conflicts by applying more consistently the transnationalist approach to judicial interpretation."

So what would happen if the U.S. court system took up a case brought by the incompatibility of the Convention and the First Amendment? That would be up to the courts to decide. But what would Koh want the courts to do? The Convention is one of Koh’s much-admired ‘transnational norms,’ whereas the First Amendment is an example of American exceptionalism – and anyone who thinks that ‘exceptionalism’ is a term of praise has not spent any time in academia.

The implication is that, when it causes “problems abroad,” the First Amendment should be subject to that “transnationalist approach to judicial interpretation,” to “moderate . . . conflicts” by ensuring American speech did not conflict with the Convention. And that would mean restraints on speech in the United States.

How can any member of the U.S. Senate, all of whom rely on freedom of speech every day, and all of whom have sworn to uphold the Constitution, support this position? Yes, the U.S. is an exceptional country in many ways, including the fact that the First Amendment guarantees the right of free speech for all Americans, and that exceptionalism should be a source of pride. The idea that the U.S. courts should limit or ‘reinterpret’ those rights to ameliorate “problems abroad” is illiberal and wrong.

Road Trips with Barack Obama: Smiles, Bows and Apologies

Peter Wehner in Commentary Magazine has a sobering review of what some are calling Barack Obama's "Apology Tour" of Europe and Latin America. It's an excellent article.

New "Hate Crime" Legislation Headed Your Way

Look out, boyo; here it comes.

The House Judiciary Committee is expected today to pass Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 which will add to the list of "federally protected classes" sexual orientation and gender identity .

The law, promised quick passage through Congress and an immediate signing by President Obama, will allow the federal government to intervene in state and local legal matters when crimes "motivated by race, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation" are committed. It also allows the federal government to prosecute the crimes in addition to the local jurisdiction and with stiffer penalties. So much for double indemnity.

Proponents of the bill include homosexual Barney Frank, the Democrat from Massachusetts whose own scandalous behavior in the past (paying for sex, using the powers of his office illegally to fix 33 parking tickets for a homosexual prostitute who he then hired as an aide, intervening with letters on congressional stationary in behalf of said prostitute who was in trouble with his Virginia probation officers, having his own apartment used in a homosexual prostitution ring) hasn't embarassed him in the least. Frank said of this new legislation effort, “The law already increases penalties for crimes motivated by hatred in several categories, so the absence of protection for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people is particularly egregious.”

...But several religious liberties groups oppose the measure, saying it is unnecessary and would limit free speech and potentially leave religious figures that speak against homosexuality open to prosecution.

“Violent crime is already illegal and there are already penalties available – a gradient of penalties based on severity,” said Matt Barber, director of cultural policy for Liberty Counsel, a religious rights organization.“What’s more,” he said, “every American currently, regardless of their sexual preference, is guaranteed the same equal protection under the law.”

What hate-crimes laws do, Barber said, is “take the focus off the crime itself and instead puts the focus on the opinion of the alleged perpetrator. It becomes a thought crime and not a hate crime,” he told CNSNews.com.

Thanks to hate-crimes laws in Canada and in the European Union, Christian groups have already become targets for hate-speech prosecution, Barber pointed out. “Hate-crimes legislation (in other countries), which is basically identical to the proposed U.S. legislation for all intensive purposes, has turned out to be the precursor to even more oppressive hate-speech legislation, which directly squashes any opposition to the homosexual lifestyle or even affirmatively promoting traditional sexual morality,” he added.

Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, agreed, saying the legal framework that the bill establishes will virtually guarantee the eventual prosecution of religious leaders who speak against homosexuality. “H.R. 1913 broadly defines ‘intimidation,’” Lafferty said. “A pastor’s sermon could be considered ‘hate speech’ under this legislation if heard by an individual who then acts aggressively against persons based on any sexual orientation. The pastor could be prosecuted for ‘conspiracy to commit a hate crime.’ ”

Lafferty told CNSNews.com that during committee markup of identical legislation in 2007, one of the bill’s cosponsors, Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), admitted that the hate-crime legislation would not exempt a pastor from prosecution in that scenario...

It's Not the Beliefs of Miss California That Are Dangerous to the Republic

CNN guest host Roland Martin (he's currently filling in for Campbell Brown on the program "No Bias, No Bull") writes a striking column here about the cruelly unfair way in which Miss California, Carrie Prejean, has been treated since her common-sense answer during the Miss America contest to a question about same-sex marriage.

The question came from homosexual activist and "self-described drama queen" Perez Hilton who, like many others in the media, have determined that Prejean doesn't have the rights of speech, religion or conscience that they themselves do.

So much for the left's version of tolerance.

Martin's column is a matter-of-fact defense of Prejean. He doesn't take on the issue of same-sex marriage itself. He merely points out the remarkable hypocrisy and short-sightedness of those who have sought to destroy this young woman for her conviction that marriage is a union between a man and a woman. Martin points out that this belief isn't wacko or dangerous; Indeed, it is a belief shared by most Americans including current liberal icons, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and...Barack Obama.

The homosexual lobby has lost all sense of balance. And falling in dangerous goosestep behind them have been Hollywood and the MSM. With this happening (so quickly, so drastically), basic American freedoms are being taken away.

Good night, America. Who would have thought your noble ideas would be undone by such an irrational, immoral force.

Is Castro "Playing" Obama?

Humberto Fontova, the author of Exposing the Real Che Guevara and other books, gives you the facts about traveling to Cuba that the MSM has conveniently ignored. In so doing, he reveals yet another angle of how Fidel Castro is deftly "playing" Barack Obama.

Well, I guess one hopes Obama is being snookered.

The other scenario (i.e. that an American president whose political philosophy was steeped in anti-American socialism is willingly enabling this vapid but vicious regime) is a whole lot scarier.

"Presidential Poison" -- WSJ Editors Take on Team Obama

Mark down the date. Tuesday, April 21, 2009, is the moment that any chance of a new era of bipartisan respect in Washington ended. By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their antiterror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret.

Policy disputes, often bitter, are the stuff of democratic politics. Elections settle those battles, at least for a time, and Mr. Obama's victory in November has given him the right to change policies on interrogations, Guantanamo, or anything on which he can muster enough support. But at least until now, the U.S. political system has avoided the spectacle of a new Administration prosecuting its predecessor for policy disagreements. This is what happens in Argentina, Malaysia or Peru, countries where the law is treated merely as an extension of political power.

If this analogy seems excessive, consider how Mr. Obama has framed the issue. He has absolved CIA operatives of any legal jeopardy, no doubt because his intelligence advisers told him how damaging that would be to CIA morale when Mr. Obama needs the agency to protect the country. But he has pointedly invited investigations against Republican legal advisers who offered their best advice at the request of CIA officials...

Read the rest of this Wall Street Journal editorial right here.

Today's Posts

NU Regents Balk at ESCR Decision. It's Time for Us To Make Our Move.

Barack's Playing Patsy to Dictators Is Bothering Even Obama Fans

Audacity Is Spreading: Balied Out Companies Keep Giving Millions to Lobby the Government.

Obama Wants to Avoid "Mistreating" America's Terrorist Enemies, Even At the Increased Risk to Americans

Why Do Democrats Hate School Choice?

Media, Law Enforcement Guilty of Complicity in Planned Parenthood Crimes

NU Regents Balk at ESCR Decision. It's Time for Us To Make Our Move.

The University of Nebraska Medical Center continues to back "scientific research" that kills people when they are just getting started in life.

Yes, that's what embryonic stem cell experimentation is all about, folks -- killing human beings right at the beginning in the convoluted name of science. Forget morality. Don't bother with religious values and that old-fashioned stuff about the sanctity of life. And please don't remind us that ESCR is a dead-end anyhow, a process that despite the millions already invested hasn't produced a single cure.

If smart scientists like we are can do it, we will do it...regardless of the ethics.

And, for that matter, we're insisting on using your tax dollars to pay the bills!

It is a quite remarkable display of arrogance and stupidity. Particularly so when true scientists (the ones seriously looking for medical treatments as opposed to those like the bosses at UNMC who are looking only at the financial benefits to UNMC gained through government and foundation grants) are proving that the route of progress utilizes adult stem cells and the breakthrough processes of iPSC (inducted pluripotent stem cells) where no embryos are destroyed. (See these posts from last week: 1 and 2.)

Well, it seems that pressure from UNMC's bosses was behind the University of Nebraska Regents' decision a few days ago to postpone until July their decision about new ESCR guidelines. That's not a good sign. Pro-life Nebraskans had been hopeful that the Regents, in light of the newest scientific progress and the evidence that most Nebraskans are opposed to research that kills people, would take action to limit ESCR.

Now the NU Regents are saying their decision will not be forthcoming until after Team Obama (notoriously zealous for abortion and embryo-destroying experimentation) finalizes the new federal ESCR rules. That will be somewhere around the first week of July.

Again, this is not good news...except...

Except for the opportunity it gives pro-life Nebraskans to get the word out even more than we've done thus far. And, among the key things on that "to do list" is to get a bunch more signatories to this online petition created by Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research. Will you help?

Here's the game plan.

1) The online petition is right here. Sign it right now if you haven't already. However, please note -- the online petition allows only one person's name to be registered at an e-mail address. So, if your spouse, kids or boarding in-laws want to sign the petition they have to use one of your alternate e-mail addresses (if you have them) OR they have to call or write Nebraska Coalition for Ethical Research. That's awfully simple, right? Just e-mail them at Info@EthicalResearch.net or call them by telephone at 402-690-2299 and say "Hey. I'm ----- and I'd like my name on the NCER petition against embryonic stem cell research." Or you can write them with the same statement, providing your legal address and phone number as well.

For those of you using the e-mail, phone or direct letter approach, I'm printing below the text of the petition so that you can be sure about what you're backing. Here it is:

The Obama administration is lifting the restrictions the Bush administration applied to federal funding of research using stem cells harvested from embryos, which destroys the embryos. The University of Nebraska Board of Regents’ policy has been to follow federal guidelines, sometimes called the “Bush compromise,” which limited federal funding to research with stem cells only from embryos destroyed prior to Aug. 9, 2001.

President Obama is erasing that cutoff date, which will increase demand for present and future destruction of embryos to get “fresh” embryonic stem cells. The University of Nebraska Medical Center has started a drumbeat for expanded embryonic stem cell research in Nebraska.

Please tell the regents to hold the line and make the Bush compromise permanent in Nebraska. No research in the NU system with stem cells from embryos destroyed after Aug. 9, 2001.

2) What else? You can contact the Regents directly. And I encourage you to do so. The contact information for the Regents can be found, courtesy of NCER, right here.

3) Bang the drum a bit. Tell your friends, family and church members. ("Hey, have you signed the NCER petition yet? Oh kid; you gotta' get on the stick. Just go to the NCER web site and do it today!")

4) Forward this Vital Signs post to every Nebraskan on your directory.

Let's get this thing done right, okay? And let's get it done soon.

Barack's Playing Patsy to Dictators Is Bothering Even Obama Fans

Author Shmuley Boteach is an admitted fan of Barack Obama. Yet Obama's recent antics with such thugs as Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Turkey's Abdullah Gul and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah have really bothered Boteach.

Here are a few excerpts from his latest article in the Jerusalem Post.

Watching all this, I was wondering what the new standards were. How oppressive must a leader be before we determine that he has not merited a hug by the democratic standard-bearer of the free world, the president of the United States? Yes, I get it. We have to speak to our enemies, and America has to push "reset" on its relationship with many of these countries. We should try and change them through charm. But who said the president himself, rather than a lower-level diplomat, must do so?

And if Obama feels that he has to be the one to greet a man like Chavez, must it be with the kind of ear-to-ear grin that one might show girl scouts selling cookies? It must surely be disheartening for those who suffer oppression in countries like Venezuela, Cuba and Saudi Arabia to see the American president backslapping their oppressors when these victims have always looked up to the United States as their champions...

All this leads to one important question. Suppose Obama succeeds in building friendships with Chavez, Castro, Ahmadinejad and the Taliban. What then? Does America still get to feel that it stands for something? Will we still be the beacon of liberty and freedom to the rest of the world, or will we have sold out in the name of political expediency? And do any of us seriously believe that presidential friendship is going to get a megalomaniac like Hugo Chavez to ease up on the levers of power, or are we just feeding his ego by showing him he can be a tyrant and still have a beer with the president of the United States? Will the Iranians really stop enriching uranium through diplomacy rather than economic sanctions?...

Audacity Is Spreading: Balied Out Companies Keep Giving Millions to Lobby the Government.

Dan Eggen, writing in the Washington Post, describes how those companies that are so desperately strapped for money, so terribly cash poor that they need millions of tax dollars confiscated from you, are yet somehow able to find a few million to keep lobbying the government.

Yeah, I know; keep your shirt on (unless the taxman has already come and taken that too) but I'll accept your being a bit peeved to learn that GM is spending about $1 million in lobbying a month!

In all, major bailout recipients have spent more than $22 million on lobbying in the six months since the government began doling out rescue funds, Senate disclosure records show.

Obviously Team Obama doesn't have an exclusive on that "audacity thing.".

Obama Wants to Avoid "Mistreating" America's Terrorist Enemies, Even At the Increased Risk to Americans

President Obama’s national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.

“High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday.

Admiral Blair sent his memo on the same day the administration publicly released secret Bush administration legal memos authorizing the use of interrogation methods that the Obama White House has deemed to be illegal torture...

(New York Times, April 21)

Why Do Democrats Hate School Choice?

If the Democrats love kids so much, why do they go to such great lengths to harm them? For that's what they do, harm kids by maintaining the welfare state, discouraging stable families, promoting counter-productive sex education, overtaxing their parents, and forcing them to attend dangerous and ever-failing government schools.

Regarding the latter, take a look at this "quick hit" list of facts and observations (assembled by Rory Cooper over at NRO's The Foundry) relevant to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and the Democrat Congress' efforts to dismantle it.

And, over here, Juan Williams (certainly no rock-ribbed conservative) weighs in on the same matter in a hard-hitting column titled "Obama’s Outrageous Sin Against Our Kids."

Media, Law Enforcement Guilty of Complicity in Planned Parenthood Crimes

One of yesterday's posts here linked you to a video of Mike Wallace's television interview with Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger and I cited it as an example of how mainstream media has worked hand in glove with the organization in its sinister schemes.

That complicity continues to this day.

Consider the following storylines the media could pursue about Planned Parenthood but don't -- storylines that they absolutely love to cover about other organizations and individuals: Planned Parenthood's reception of huge amounts of government money; its posing as a charitable organization despite making exorbitant profits from selling abortion and contraception; its use of inferior products; its numerous examples of lies and hypocrisy; its racist and eugenics background; its overwhelming concentration on selling abortion despite advertising its adoption-friendly counseling; its profane promotions; its dramatically counter-productive sex education programs; its knee-jerk lobbying responses against any legislation that seeks to oversee (let alone limit) abortion; and its illegal activities in evading child protection and statutory rape laws.

Regarding the latter activity, a Planned Parenthood counselor in Memphis, Tennessee, was recently videotaped via a hidden camera instructing a 14-year-old girl to lie to a judge so he would not find out about her 31-year-old boyfriend and the girl could obtain a waiver for an abortion without her parents' knowledge. This criminal act follows a pattern that has been uncovered in several citizen-directed stings this last couple of years.

And yet the authorities will not act. They will not uphold the law.

What a hot and juicy story for the press, right?

No. The leftist media has avoided it like the proverbial plague. They see it. They know it. And they deliberately act to cover it up.

From Mike Wallace in 1957 through his counterparts here in 2009, the complicity in the crimes of Planned Parenthood continue.

I suggest mentioning details from this Tennessee story in letters to editors and your political representatives. Others may shirk their responsibilities; we must not follow their lead.

Today's Posts

Now, That's Heavy, Dude!

Margaret Sanger -- Live on TV

Jackie Chan Defends Communist Tyranny: "We Chinese Need To Be Controlled"

"We Can't Let the Family Die"

More Women Than Men in the American Work Force?

Ready to Endure Some Bleak Reading?

You've Earned a Break -- with Lou Christie

Now, That's Heavy, Dude!

It comes at all you from all sides on a Monday, doesn't it?

Well, I guess it comes at you from all sides just about any day of the week. But yesterday was a particularly tough day -- sidewalk counseling outside that trashy Bellevue abortion clinic of Leroy Carhart's; fighting the indifference of 9 clients and at least as many abortion workers; fighting too against wind gusts of up to 4o miles an hour; trying to help my Mom deal with the anxieties from her first night on a C-PAP breathing machine; takling to a young single mother whose doubts about religious matters had reached a crisis point; and a few other problems.

Oh yeah, there was also an intervention with two aggressive and dangerous thugs who were running a door-to-door scam in our neighborhood. Fortunately, I was here to defend Claire, get the goods on the game they were running and eventually get the police after the bad guys.

Whew. It was sure enough for me to fall back on the visionary truth spoken by the apostle Paul in I Cornthians 4:17 and 18, "For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

You know, in the flower power days of my youth, we used to describe things that were deeply meaningful and profound as "heavy." As in, "Whoa, man! Can you dig those really heavy Buffalo Springfield lyrics!"

Well, the Greek word translated "weight" in the above verse is one whose strict translation would be "heavy." It suggests something solid, sure, lasting -- something that's a strong contrast to things that are light, ethereal and easily blown away.

It's as if Paul knew exactly how we would use the word "heavy" in the 1960s. "Brother, you're gonna' have trouble in your life. There's a whole lot of anguish and trials and sin and enemy actions you'll be called to encounter. But, trust me. As one who has known plenty of that kind of trouble, I can testify with authority that all of 'em put together are light and momentary when compared to the truly heavy thing -- and that heavy thing is the heavenly inheritance that awaits you on the other side. So, dude; don't give up. Don't get distracted. And don't let your joy, your confidence or your duty get lost in sweating the small stuff. Concentrate instead on making that 'heavy' reward heavier still by faithfully following Jesus, your Savior."

Yeah, okay; maybe Paul wouldn't have put it exactly that way. But you get the point; namely, that even Mondays like yesterday with all their "momentary, light affliction" cannot even compare with the glory of the "heavy" prize which is ours.

Margaret Sanger -- Live on TV

Roe v Wade was a wave of blasphemous barbarism which crashed on the shores of American culture in 1973. And, in succeeding decades, that wave inundated justice, compassion and respect for the inherent dignity of all human life -- ideals our forefathers had deeply cherished.

But that horrendous wave had been gaining strength for a long time.

Case in point? Watch this eerie interview of eugenics pioneer and Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger as conducted by Mike Wallace in 1957.

Despite Wallace's claims in the beginning that he's going to go after facts, he doesn't. It's a fawning interview, one that reveals Wallace's own leftist attitudes as much as it does hers. He treats Sanger as a heroine, a human rights champion who bravely fought against ignorance, suffering, sexism and, of course, the Catholic Church.

And, not surprising, Wallace doesn't go after Sanger's eugenics doctrines, her racism or the extreme weirdness of her own lifestyle.

Thus, in watching this old clip, full as it is of Sanger's distortions, irreverence and personal arrogance, plus the evidence it shows of a respected journalist's complicity in helping pitch her goods to a large television audience, we can see just how that wave reached its gigantic (and terribly lethal) proportions.

Jackie Chan Defends Communist Tyranny: "We Chinese Need To Be Controlled"

Popular action movie star Jackie Chan shows why he might have got hit in the head once too often.

"I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not. I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want."

His comments no doubt delighted the Communist thugs in Beijing. But others haven't been so thrilled.

Chan did let slip, however, a deliciously an ironic admission before he was through with his performance. "If I need to buy a television, I would definitely buy a Japanese television," he said. "A Chinese television might explode."