So there was this video making the rounds today showing school children singing praise to Obama. Here it is:

I read online that the school has been identified as:

B. Bernice Young E.S. (05-0620-030)
School Type: ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Ms. Denise King, Principal
1203 NECK ROAD
BURLINGTON, NJ 08016-9741
(609)386-3520

So I called the school at 609-386-3520 and asked if they were a public school. They refused to answer that questions. I asked what school district they belonged to and they refused to answer. They gave me a number for media relations and hung up on me.

I called the school back and got a different person. I asked them if what school district they were a part of and they said “Burlington Township”. I asked if they were a public school and they refused to answer. I told them that whether they were a public school or not should be public information yet they refused to answer. They gave me their media number (609) 699-4025 and hung up again on me. I was completely civil through all of these conversations.

I then went to the New Jersey Department of Education website and found that the “B. Bernice Young E.S.” was listed as a state school in the “Burlington Township School District”. I then proceeded to call the media relations (609.292.4469 option 8 ) of the New Jersey Department of Education who seemed surprised that the school was not answering basic questions. I asked them for comment about the behavior of this school in not answering basic questions and they said they would get back to me so I left my name and number with them.

I then called the media number that the B. Bernice Young school gave me and it went to a mailbox that was 100% full.

I am now going to try to call the school district and see if I can get comment from them. My questions are:

1) Can you confirm that the video of children singing praise of Obama is the B. Bernice Young elementary school?
2) What is the name of the teacher and what class does the video depict?
3) Does the video accurately depict the school’s understanding of the classroom exercise?
4) Does the school district support the classroom exercise depicted on the video?
5) Does the school district have a policy against classroom exercises with a partisan political message?
6) Does the school district consider the event depicted on the video to be a partisan political message?
7) Has the school district opened an investigation into how the event depicted on the video came to be?

These questions can be modified and asked of the school itself or the state Dept. of Education.

If you would like to try to get comment from this school, they list the following email addresses on their website:
Principal Dr. Denise King, dking@burltwpsch.org
Vice Principal:  Mrs.  Carol Zulla, czulla@burltwpsch.org
School Nurse:  Mrs. Debbie Ford RN, dford@burltwpsch.org

UPDATE:

School district mailbox is also full. The front office of the school won’t answer any questions. Looks like a school that has no idea how to defend their actions and is getting overwhelmed. Why that can’t answer basic questions like whether they are a public school or not is beyond me. I guess this is big government, or rather corrupt government that uses taxpayer money for political gain at its finest.

STATEMENT FROM SCHOOL DISTRICT

MICHELLE MALKIN COVERAGE

Planned Parenthood has been known to twist language to advance their abortion agenda. This includes using regularly referring to  life rights advocates as “anti-choice”. Read why “anti-choice” is an imprecise and intellectually dishonest term.

Now we see a Planned Parenthood County President making an outrageous and offensive claim by calling those who peacefully protest outside abortion clinics, “terrorist”.

“I think the people that demonstrate outside of our building are terrorists because they’re trying to deny women access to what a woman is choosing for herself”

Char Wendel, CEO and President of Planned Parenthood of Collier County. (view source)

This statement is a chilling statement against free speech and first amendment rights. Remember that all of this is being done with your tax money and Planned Parenthood receives about one-third of its operating income from taxpayer subsidies.

ACTION STEPS TO FIGHT BACK:

1) Call the Planned Parenthood of Collier County offices and demand that they issues a public apologies to all life rights advocates for their offensive and dangerous statement.

239/262-8923 (Planned Parenthood of Collier County Admin Office)
239/262-0301 (Planned Parenthood of Collier County Clinic)

2) Call the national offices of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and demand that they issues a public apologies to all life rights advocates for their offensive and dangerous statement and that they sever ties with the Collier County Planned Parenthood if they do not retract their statement.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America
434 West 33rd Street
New York, NY 10001
PHONE: 212-541-7800
FAX: 212-245-1845

Planned Parenthood Federation of America
1110 Vermont Ave. NW
Suite 300
Washington, DC 20005
PHONE: 202-973-4800
FAX: 202-296-3242

3) Spread this blog post to your friends and ask them to fight back for free speech.

The direct link to this blog is: http://issuesandjustice.com/2009/09/planned-parenthood-pro-lifers-terrorists

From August 10th, 2009 Community Meeting in San Jose, CA.
Zoe Logfren, CA-D16
Democrat Congresswomen & Obama HealthCare Advocate

My friend Ignacio Reyes asks the question.

Delusions and lies from from ObamaCare advocate:

“And, right now we spend about twice per capita on health care but we get less favorable outcomes than most other industrialized nations.”
Zoe Logfren
Democrat Congresswomen & Obama HealthCare Advocate
CA-D16
August 10th, 2009
San Jose, CA

What are your thoughts on the latest video from Issues & Justice?

Ever get tired of seeing people write opinion pieces that are nothing more than a self-serving rehash of agenda-driven talking points?

Well today I came across one of those pieces and decided to kindly correct the record and provide some diversity of viewpoint – which is a good thing after all, right?

The piece I am talking about is called “Crocodile Tears” by Sam Davis. You may wonder why I am spending my time responding to a piece that is published on a website that gets only 5,000 unique visitors a month according to leading traffic monitoring website Compete.com. I thought this piece was a good example of how often liberal writers regurgitate group-think and fail to see how opportunistic agenda oozes from everything they do.

Let’s begin…

“‘I certainly don’t believe in shooting abortion providers, but I certainly can see how someone could feel justified in doing something like that.’ Those are the sentiments of one of my fellow religious bigots in 1993 the first time Dr. George Tiller was shot. The statement just masks the real attitude of many of the lunatics fringe of the Religious Right-about 90%-who are thinking and saying privately, “Hurray, someone did our dirty work and we didn’t have to get involved.” To tell the truth, many of you anti-abortion proponents were silently cheering when you heard about Dr. Tiller’s death. You only have to kill 1,800 more abortion providers (or Baby-Killers as you like to brand them) and you’ll reach your goal.”

First, Sam does what I consider to be one of the most despicable things in thinking about others: Assuming the motives and thoughts of others and thinking the worst of people. He doesn’t provide any polling data or any other hard evidence in making his assessments. He just wants his readers to blindly trust him and believe that those anti-abortion people are really secretly happy. He can’t of course claim that they are publicly happy (every legitimate pro-life group in the country has condemned the killings)as that has not been evidenced.

“Dr. Tiller was one of only three providers of late-term abortions in the U.S.”

That is factually incorrect. If you look at CDC data, you will see that many states across the US did late term abortions. There are many providers in the US that do abortions after 20 weeks. Check outl: http://wnd.com/index.php/index.php?pageId=99924 Unfortunately, the AP didn’t face check very well when put out this false information that many people like you are continuing to spread.

“He saved the lives of hundreds of women by doing late-term abortions”

I support abortion-choice in cases where the life of the mother is in the balance. That said, most of Dr. Tiller’s cases were not like that. In fact, the partial birth abortion procedures that he performed (before they were banned under President Bush) were never necessary to save the life of a mother. Partial birth abortion provides no medical benefit to the mother. It is just like a real birth except the child is killed while its head is still in the vagina.

“His death is just the latest episode in a long string of violence and intimidation by the Religious Right.”

George Tiller’s tragic death is just the first abortionist killed in the 21st century. Violence against abortion providers has actually declined greatly according to data  kept by the National Abortion Federation. Looking at crime statistics, people who consider themselves religious and conservative as actually some of the most peaceable people in the country. Also left out of this article is the fact that the accused killed of George Tiller has no formal connection to any pro-life group and according to people close to him he suffered from an untreated mental illness.

“Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue and the Rush Limbaugh of the anti-abortion crowd”

Actually Randall Terry has very little standing in the pro-life movement. As someone who is pro-life, I don’t look to Randall Terry for any leadership. The real leaders of the pro-life movement are groups like National Right to Life, American United for Life, Priests for Life, and the 50 state right to life organization. Any informed observer would know that. He doesn’t even run an organization to my knowledge.  Why is is this author elevating Mr. Terry? It appears Mr. Davis is trying to use Mr. Terry to make a pre-conceived point. When he did not see evidence for his point in the leading pro-life circles, he decided to elevate Mr. Terry to fit the bill.

“Limbaugh continually spouts a tirade of racist and over the top comments that reflect the real agenda of the Republican Right”

I find it offensive once against that Mr. Davis would accuse Mr. Limbaugh of racism without providing any evidence. It is like saying someone is a child molester and then just leaving it at that. Furthermore, Mr. David tries to smear all people who are Republicans as racists by his sentence construction.  This stereotype is false, deceptive, and doesn’t promote understanding or progression in our national discussion.

“They refer clients to adoption agencies.”

Yes, Planned Parenthood does refer clients to adoption agencies. The sad truth is how rarely that happens. According to Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report, they performed 60 abortions for every adoption referral they did. You can see where their focus is. 4,912 adoption referrals vs. 305,310 abortions.

“Pregnancy terminations are a very small portion of their practice and the counseling they provide before and after the procedure is highly professional.”

Abortions are a very significant portion of their business. They are the largest abortion provider in the United States. They killed and removed 305,310 human embryos and fetuses according to their latest annual report. Conservatively that equates to over $115,000,000 in revenue.

Also, Planned Parenthood’s counseling has been found to be suspect:

#1: Planned Parenthood Employee Fired After Hiding Alleged Sexual Abuse of 13yo Girl

#2: Sexual Abuse of 13-Year-Old is No Problem to Indianapolis Planned Parenthood

#3: Shhh! Sex Abuse Coverup is OK with Tucson Planned

#4: Sex Abuse Cover-up at Phoenix Planned Parenthood

#5: Allegedly impregnated 14yo told by Planned Parenthood to lie about older man

“I don’t know when life begins and neither do they, but I suspect we Progressive have a lot more concern about quality of life than most on the Right do”

First we see an assumption in the statement that knowing when human life begins is unknowable. Consider what Alan Guttmacher, M.D., former president of Planned Parenthood wrote in his book Life in the Making:

We of today know that man is born of sexual union; that he starts life as an embryo within the body of the female; and that the embryo is formed from the fusion of two single cells, the ovum and the sperm. This all seems so simple and evident to us that it is difficult to picture a time when it was not part of the common knowledge.

Planned Parenthood’s research arm, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, is named after him. We know when human life beings…at fertilization. Mr. Davis may want to read this or this to study up on the science.

Republicans really need to hang onto as many abortion providers as possible because without abortion as an issue, they lose a major portion of their platform.

This snide partisan statement dishonestly assumes that Republicans have no other major positions – which was not the case the last time I read the GOP party platform. Why should Republican’s care what this liberal Democrat thinks they should do to win?  He clearly doesn’t have their best interest at heart.

Take away the gay marriage issue (which is really a straw man) and they have a one-legged stool.

Now the topic is gay marriage? What a rambling piece. Is this about abortion and George Tiller or about bashing to Republican Party? If this was about the later then why didn’t the piece start with that theme? So unfocused.

If Republicans really want to end abortion, they won’t pick people like Rick Perry and John Cornyn, as well as many of our state legislators. But, you see they don’t, because without the abortion issue, Republicans don’t have a leg to stand on.

Once again, the lecturing of Republicans continues. Why would any Republican want to take advise from some liberal who just got done bashing them? Instead of making an intelligent case based on facts, as I believe op-eds should do, we get unsupported opinion in the form of conspiratorial liberal lecture about who Republicans should elect.

Abortion advocates join in smears…

“It is abhorrent that once again, individuals who oppose the right to choose have used violence to try to advance their extreme anti-choice agenda,” said Vicki Saporta, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation.

1) Murder is wrong and the killing of George Tiller was an immoral act of cowardice.

2) “Anti-choice” is a dishonest term…see: http://notantichoice.com/

3) The intellectually dishonest political exploitation has sadly begun by groups like the National Abortion Federation. Their statements communicate that they would rather profit politically through dishonest smears than engage in a real debate about abortion and human life.

LIFE NEWS: George Tiller Shooting Suspect Caught, No Connection With Pro-Life Groups

Others who have exploited the tragic death of George Tiller to smear pro-lifers:

Kansas City Star: Hendricks: Tiller’s killers were many

DailyKos: “Tiller deserved to die”

The Seminal: The Deadly Logic of the Anti-Choice Movement

Huffington Post: Christian Fundamentalist Terrorism

Feministing

The research behind this video:

1.16% Same-sex Couples
http://www.gaydemographics.org/USA/USA.htm

Homosexuals with same-sex partners were at greater risk for overall mental health problems and were 6.5 times more likely than their twins to have attempted suicide
R. Herrell, et al., “A Co-Twin Study in Adult Men,” Archives of General Psychiatry 56 (1999): 867-874.

“the incidence of domestic violence among gay men is nearly double that in the heterosexual population.”
William C. Nichols, et al, editors, Handbook of Family Development and Intervention (New York:John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2000): 393.
http://books.google.com/books?id=vHRHAAAAMAAJ&source=gbs_ViewAPI&pgis=1

“same-sex cohabitants reported significantly more intimate partner violence than did opposite-sex cohabitants. Thirty-nine percent of the same-sex cohabitants reported being raped, physically assaulted, and/or stalked by a marital/cohabitating partner at some time in their lifetimes, compared to 21.7 percent of the opposite-sex cohabitants. Among men, the comparable figures are 23.1 percent and 7.4 percent.”
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/181867.htm

Same-sex cohabitants reported significantly more intimate partner violence than did opposite-sex cohabitants. 39% of the female same-sex cohabitants reported being raped, physically assaulted, and/or stalked by a marital/cohabitating partner at some time in their lifetimes, compared to 21.7% of the opposite-sex female cohabitants. Among men, the comparable figures are 23.1% and 7.4%t.
http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/181867.pdf

“Married women in traditional families experience the lowest rate of violence compared with women in other types of relationships”
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/ipv.pdf

Substantially higher proportions of the homosexual sample used alcohol, marijuana, or cocaine than was the case in the general population.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2589133

Homosexual Men Account for 65 Percent of Syphilis Cases, CDC Study Finds
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=41975

Roughly one of every 10 men who have sex with men reported using meth within a six-month period, according to a 2005 study cited by the L.A. County Department of Public Health in a report this week. That frequency is about 20 times greater than in the general population, Fielding (Los Angeles County public health director.) said.
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/apr/11/local/me-meth11

In their study of the sexual profiles of 2,583 older homosexuals published in the Journal of Sex Research, Paul Van de Ven et al. found that “the modal range for number of sexual partners ever [of homosexuals] was 101-500.” In addition, 10.2 percent to 15.7 percent had between 501 and 1,000 partners. A further 10.2 percent to 15.7 percent reported having had more than one thousand lifetime sexual partners.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2372/is_n4_v34/ai_20536043/

Lesbians and gay men may be at increased risk for morbidity and mortality due to higher levels of cigarette and alcohol use.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17018152&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus

In a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 20 years less than for all men.
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/26/3/657

LINKS:

The Washington Post, April 10: Faith Groups Increasingly Lose Gay Rights Fights
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/09/AR2009040904063_pf.html

NPR Documents Loss of Personal and Religious Freedom to Gay Agenda
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91486191