Monthly Archives: June 2012

News

Hawaii Planned Parenthood caught counseling sex-selection abortions

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From Life News.

Excerpt:

Live Action released new undercover footage today showing two Planned Parenthood clinics, in Maui and Honolulu, advising undercover investigators on how to procure a sex-selective abortion of her baby girl because she wants a boy instead. Officials with the group say Planned Parenthood claims publicly to condemn sex-selective abortion but continues to provide them to women who request them.

The Planned Parenthood Maui Clinic worker counsels Live Action’s undercover journalist to wait for a late-term abortion to double-check that the baby is actually a girl before killing her. Then, another worker at Planned Parenthood Honolulu makes sure the woman signs up for QUEST, Hawaii’s taxpayer-funded insurance, which will pay for her elective, late-term, sex-selective abortion.

“If that’s, you know, if that’s what you wanna base your decision on–really–it’s up to you,” assures the Maui Planned Parenthood counselor, Leslie Watson, when a purportedly pregnant woman explains she wants an abortion because of the sex of the baby.

Watson counsels the woman to be certain about the sex of her unborn child before going through with an abortion, telling her to seek an ultrasound from an OB/GYN and not to worry if they might judge a sex-selective abortion: “This is your reason and this is your situation. So they should be accommodating because this can help you determine and it’s nobody’s business and nobody’s reason but yours.”

In Honolulu, the Planned Parenthood counselor “Rogue” tells the woman it is okay to have multiple abortions of girl pregnancies so long as the abortions are spaced far enough apart. The Planned Parenthood counselor suggests paying for the abortions using Hawaii’s QUEST state health insurance.

“So if I wanted to terminate a girl the government would pay for it?” asks the woman. “They don’t care,” the Planned Parenthood counselor replies.

In response to false complaints from abortion advocates that the videos are edited or manipulated, Live Action released the full, unedited video footage which shows the employees at both abortion facilities ensuring that the taxpayers of Hawaii fund the purely sex-selective abortion.

Here’s the previous Live Action sting, in case you missed it.

Related posts on Planned Parenthood

News

Wall Street slashes GDP growth forecasts: recession on the horizon?

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The Democrats took over the House and Senate in 2007
The Democrats took over the House and Senate in 2007

James Pethokoukis says we’re doomed. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

 In the seven quarters since [August 2010], the U.S. economy has grown at an average annual clip of just 2.1%, including just 1.7% last year.

And right now, 2012 looks like more of the same. GDP expanded at a mere 1.9% pace in the first quarter.

And after a weak retail sales number today, Wall Street economists have been slashing their second-quarter GDP forecasts:

  • Goldman Sachs cut its forecast to 1.6% from 1.8%.
  • Bank of America/Merrill Lynch cut its forecast to 1.9% from 2.4%.
  • Macroeconomic Advisers cut its forecast to 1.8% from 2.0%.
  • CIBC World Markets cut its forecast to 2.0% from 2.3%.
  • Barclays Capital cut its forecast to 1.8% from 2.1%
  • Action Economics cut its forecast to 1.8% from 2.0%.

This analysis from JPMorgan provides a good summary:

After today’s retail sales report our best estimate is that second quarter real GDP is currently tracking a 2.0% annual growth rate, lower than our prior projection of 2.5%. Moreover, we see some downside risk to our new forecast. The largest reason for the downward revision is today’s retail sales report, which lowers our tracking of real consumer spending growth from 2.8% to 2.2%. … In addition, first quarter GDP, which currently prints at 1.9%, looks to be tracking closer to 1.7%. Given the weaker momentum in first half growth, achieving our second half outlook for 2% growth will require more things to go right than wrong, which hasn’t been the case recently.

The current White House forecast of 3% GDP growth this year looks hopelessly out of reach. And growth this anemic is probably not fast enough to generate enough sustained job growth to bring down the unemployment rate.

At this rate, I would say that we will be back in a recession within 12 months. Obama simply isn’t doing anything to stop the bleeding.

Commentary

Entitlements programs are going bankrupt: how can we fix them?

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From the American Enterprise Institute, a post that explains in brief how to reform each of the three largest entitlement programs so that they will not go bankrupt by the time today’s younger workers need them.

Here are the programs:

  1. Social Security (a social program to redistribute wealth from current workers to current retirees)
  2. Medicaid (a social program to provide health care to low income/low wealth Americans)
  3. Medicare (a social program to provide health care and prescription drugs to older Americans)

And here’s one of the solutions (for Social Security):

Social Security is the easiest entitlement program to reform and can be done without raising taxes.

  • The age should be gradually raised to 70 by 2065.
  • Benefits should be indexed to price inflation, not wage inflation, as the program’s purpose is to keep the elderly out of poverty.
  • Benefits should gradually be reduced for earners with high incomes. The system should be a way to keep individuals out of poverty, not create a dependent upper- and middle-class.

Together these three reforms would ensure Social Security stays solvent. The entire system, however, could be easily replaced with a new program designed to keep seniors out of poverty and empower them throughout their retirement. People should be given the incentive to work longer by eliminating the Social Security payroll tax for individuals over 62, and a basic income supplement should be provided to impoverished senior citizens. Workers should then be given ownership of their retirement savings by enrolling all workers 55 and younger into a retirement savings account funded by 5 percent of the worker’s earnings (2.5 percent from the individual and 2.5 percent from the employer). These simple reforms would create a system that  actually provides a safety net for needy citizens — all for 60 percent of what the U.S. currently spends on Social Security.

Click through for the other two problems and solutions.