This news comes as no surprise, but as was the case with the ACORN video exposé, the target of Live Action’s investigation is not any specific branch manager.

N.J. Star Ledger has the report:

PERTH AMBOY — The man and woman walked into the Planned Parenthood clinic in Perth Amboy sounding like the operators of a child sex ring looking for help with their business.

They told the manager they would bring in girls as young as 14 for tests, birth control and abortion referrals and wanted to know what kind of questions to expect from clinic employees.

The manager was helpful. She coached them to lie about the age of the girls’ sex partners. “If they are a minor, we are obligated if we hear certain information, to kind of report (it),” the manager said. “So as long as they just lie and say, ‘Oh, he’s 15, 16,’ ’’ no one should question them.

But the man and woman were actually members of Live Action, a California-based anti-abortion group that targeted Planned Parenthood clinics in five states and Washington, D.C., last month. The scenes were videotaped and posted on YouTube, and today created a national uproar.

Tonight, Central Jersey Planned Parenthood fired the manager, identified in the video as Amy Woodruff, and beefed up security around its clinics. (more…)

David Crary, The Associated Press NEW YORK, N.Y. – An anti-abortion group Tuesday released undercover video taken in its latest attempt to discredit an organization that provides abortions — footage of operatives posing as a pimp and a prostitute seeking health services at a New Jersey clinic.

The group releasing the video, Live Action, said it depicted a Planned Parenthood clinic employee offering to help cover up a sex ring so that its prostitutes could receive health services.

Planned Parenthood said it had promptly notified law enforcement authorities after the visit, but it also said it was investigating whether the clinic employee in the video may have violated some of the organization’s policies.

Planned Parenthood had proactively revealed the broad outlines of the new undercover operation last week, reporting that at least 12 of its clinics across the country had been visited by men claiming to be sex- traffickers.

The organization, which is the leading U.S. provider of abortions, asked federal authorities to investigate and said it had identified a man involved in the visits as linked to Live Action. (more…)

Big Government has covered the Obama Administration’s war on career colleges before, particularly the the Wall Street connections: noted short-seller Steve Eisman, who’s testimony in front of the Department of Education and in Congressional committees is shaping the Administration’s policy and potentially earning Eisman millions. Now, it seems Eisman is trying desperately to distance himself from what appears to be a destructive policy for America’s low-income and minority students.

Recently, the Administration and Education Secretary Arne Duncan proposed that career colleges and other for-profit educational institutions, be governed by the so-called “gainful employment rule” – a rule that limits or ends federal grant and student loan money for students at for-profit institutions with low graduation rates or low post-graduation employment. Although for-profit schools face essentially the same problems as not-for-profit institutions, students at for-profit schools tend to be lower-income and minority communities, who rely heavily on government assistance to earn the kind of education and skill level necessary to succeed in today’s harsh economic climate.

The rule has met with overwhelming opposition from a number of organizations and communities, and much of that criticism has been leveled at how the Administration came up with the “gainful employment rule.” Recently, it’s become apparent that Steve Eisman’s testimony motivated the Administration’s actions, even if he’s reticent to admit it.

From Business Week:

On April 16, Eisman met with Education Department officials, including acting deputy assistant education secretary David Bergeron, according to Justin Hamilton, a department spokesman. He sent multiple e-mails to a number of Education Department officials, including Duncan, on May 28, two days after airing his views at the Sohn conference in New York. He warned against the watering down of gainful employment, according to the documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request…

‘He shared a PowerPoint that he intended to use for a speech he was planning to give in May,’ Bergeron, the acting deputy assistant education secretary, said in a telephone interview. “It would have been inappropriate for us not to meet with someone that indicated that he had done serious research on the industry.’”

That Power Point contained some very important suggestions, designed to target the problem Mr. Eisman believed for-profit education was causing. One of those suggestions was a very coincidentally named “gainful employment” rule on slides 33 and 34 of his extensive presentation.

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Lt. General Sami Enan is the chief of staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces.

Reuters is reporting that the “Egypt general could be new leader-Islamist “:

Enan could be an acceptable successor to Hosni Mubarak because he is perceived as incorruptible, a member of the banned Muslim Brotherhood said on Tuesday.

Egyptian Muslim cleric Kamel Al Helbawi, a main figure in the opposition movement with strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood,  is quoted:

“He can be the future man of Egypt… I think he will be acceptable …”

The prominent Kuwaiti news service Gulf News just released a story under this stunning headline:

“Armed forces chief seen as Mubarak successor”

And now this breaking news from French news service Le Quotidien:

“The intellectual community of Egypt calls on Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, and Sami Enan, Chief of the Egyptian armed forces, to act as leaders of the opposition. We do not want El-Baradei. He spent too much time abroad, and knows nothing of the daily reality of the Egyptian people. He does not represent us,” declares on Facebook a professor of economics lecturer at the University Amércaine Cairo (AUC.)

Le Quotidien quoted directly from the Muslim Brotherhood website.

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The high school graduate who cannot read his diploma is a favorite cliché among education reformers.

But like all clichés, it holds a lot of truth.  Difficult as it may be to believe, there high school graduates who are barely able to read and write and do basic math.  Their schools hand them a worthless piece of paper and send them out into the world.  These kids are totally unprepared to handle life and the workaday world.

How is this possible? How can a child spend 13 years inside a classroom and have so few skills?

A big part of the reason is the automobile assembly line mentality that infiltrated of schools decades ago.

Watch ‘Assembly Line Education’ – Episode 1 – “Kids Aren’t Cars”

Consider a typical day in our public schools:  a bell rings (bringing the learning process to a screeching halt), kids get out of their seat and shuffle off to their next class to do it all over again — like an assembly line.

And like many factories, the teachers are part of a union in which work responsibilities are narrowly-defined, innovation and initiative are stymied and penalized, and excellence is treated no differently than mediocrity.

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The recent ruling by a federal judge invalidating Obamacare in its entirety was a resounding victory for opponents of the sweeping law. It isn’t though, by itself, the end of the fight. The final determination of the constitutionality of Obamacare could take months or even years. The efforts to repeal Obamacare can’t simply wait for the courts. Continued action is needed now.

During the recent House vote, only three Democrats voted withRepublicans to repeal ObamaCare – less than the 13 who remain in Congress who opposed the original legislation. Typical of their response was Rep. Larry Kissell (D-NC). Kissell voted against ObamaCare but then voted against its repeal – a tacit endorsement of the legislation.

Kissell told McClatchy News Service that he would rather “chip away” at the legislation.  Okay. The time has come to start chipping.

It’s clear that the repeal vote is essentially the floor. Efforts to “chip away” at the bill will garner more support than the repeal vote, as Kissell and his ilk will vote for Republican efforts to “replace” the bill. Jason Altmire (D-PA) opposed the bill and repeal saying, “We think, by in large, it was a bad bill. It did more harm than good. But to repeal it all, including the few provisions that were beneficial, just doesn’t make sense.”

Let the chipping begin.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by David Hogberg of Investors Business Daily to discuss Judge Roger Vinson’s ruling against Obamacare. Then Pejman Yousefzadeh talks about Jon Huntsman.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Florida Judge Rules That ObamaCare Should Be ‘Void’
Florida Judge Rules Obamacare Unconstitutional
No, Ezra Klein, ObamaCare Wouldn’t Have Saved Child
Capital Hill, IBD’s Politics and Markets Blog
For Governors, Medicaid Looks Ripe for Slashing
Huntsman team preps for possible 2012 bid
The Latest Huntsman 2012 News
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Decades of autocratic government and a lack of free elections are, of course, the main drivers of the political upheaval in Egypt. But did the sinking dollar and skyrocketing food prices trigger the massive unrest now occurring in Egypt — or the greater Arab world for that matter?

In addition to Egypt, the people have taken to the streets to varying degrees in Algeria, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, and Yemen. Local food riots have even broken out in rural China and other Asian locales.

While the mainstream media focuses on the political aspects of this turmoil, they are overlooking the impact of rising inflation, driven mainly by record food prices. For example, former Bush advisor Dan Senor notes that Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer. Yet because of skyrocketing prices, Egyptian inflation is now over 10 percent, while some experts estimate that Egyptian food inflation has risen as much as 20 percent.

So I have to ask this tough question: Is Ben Bernanke’s ultra-easy QE2 money pump-priming partially to blame?

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Will the 400 leftist rabbis refute this?

This was some sick stuff. Anti-Semitism is alive and well at Media Matters.

Media Matters blamed the Egyptian crisis today on the US Jewish lobby and media-owning Jews.
Yid With Lid reported this from Media Matters.

If one needs additional proof that the “pro-Israel” lobby and the policies it dictates to US policymakers are bad for both the U.S. and Israel, look no further than what is happening in Egypt.

The regime that the Israeli government and its U.S. lobby have depended upon to enforce the status quo is going down. It is not clear when, but it’s going to be soon, much sooner than anyone ever anticipated. And you can be sure that any democratic government that takes Mubarak’s place is not going to play the role of America’s (let alone Israel’s) enforcer in the Middle East.

Hopefully, the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty will survive — thousands of lives on both sides have been saved by President Carter’s Camp David Treaty — but there are no guarantees. Far from it.

Of course, no one would even be worried about the peace treaty if the Israelis had agreed to implement the critical second part of the Camp David Accords.
That was the part that would have ended the occupation. But the Israelis chose to ignore it and the lobby and the ever-faithful Congress blocked Carter’s efforts to push it through.

Write Media Matters here and demand that they retract this awful anti-Semitic attack against American Jews.

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Since the healthcare reform legislation passed, the discussion has centered on the fear of a government takeover of healthcare, but maybe this should not be the focus. Perhaps we should be worried about a corporate takeover of healthcare.

HIPPA (Health Information Portable Accountability Act) was signed into law in 1996 ostensibly to protect a patient’s privacy. It involved “covered entities” such as physicians, administrators who administer health plans for employers, and anyone who is involved in transactions including business associates. Over time it has evolved into a legal club that consists of fines and or jail time that can be used to punish those who have been deemed to violate the rule. The Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 gives the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services the power to determine the amount of fines and whether civil penalties will be applied to those who violate HIPPA.  As with many other tenants of Obamacare, this was not present within the healthcare reform bill. It is simply another example of a legislative sleight of hand that makes it easier to slide in questionable pieces of legislation that may not be popular by distracting with one hand while the other is doing the dirty work.

If the over 700 waivers to the healthcare mandate granted by Secretary Sebelius to big corporations such as Waffle House and Foot Locker, and supporters of  Obamacare such as Aetna, Cigna and the SEIU are any indication, those who oppose the administration need to watch their backs. Dr Milton Wolf wrote an article for The Washington Times (The Tawdry Details of Obamacare) that provides an excellent synopsis of the privileged treatment bestowed upon friends of the administration. Clearly, this highlights what the president said about rewarding friends. Those who are not lucky enough to receive these waivers will have the thankless task of being under the mandate yolk and therefore picking up the tab. In the age where the government constantly talks about ‘fairness’ how fair is that?  It is yet another example of rules that are applied unequally.

Now that the cozy relationship between Google and the government has been brought to light it leads one to wonder what other favors will Google be granted?

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Predictably, the media is describing the goings on in the Arab world as consisting of revolutionaries fighting their oppressive leaders for democracy and human rights.  Never mind that democracy does not ensure liberty.  Never mind that the governments that will likely ultimately take over will consist of terrorists and terrorist sympathizers.  Never mind that in our words and actions we are implicitly if not explicitly supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, undermining anyone who might be helpful in the region, just as we did by sitting on our hands while actual moderate and secular people sought our help in Iran.

Egyptian rebellion in the liberal narrative, along with rebellion among any group hostile in nature to the US and Israel by default has to be good, as is any shakeup of the existing structure.  Crises are useful things.

And the useful idiots in our society, brainwashed by handlers in the media and academia can no longer recognize the difference between good and evil.  Whether it is “Palestinians” launching rockets at Israelis, or the obligatory disclaimer that there are plenty of patriotic Muslims in a State of the Union speech, leftists will always support anything that challenges the status quo, and pay lip service to Islam; anything that represents a threat to traditional Western civilization is a positive in the battle to create their Utopic socialist world.

Hope and change is inherently good, no matter what the hope is and what the change entails.  And why put up this facade instead of calling things what they really are?  Because pleasant and airy words hide the horrors of a socialist world or an Islam-dominated one (which are quite similar incidentally); these words distract us from despicable actions, and sound palatable to an apathetic public.

The leftists and the Islamic world understand public relations specifically and how to exert mass influence generally.  They know how to manipulate through media and propagandize in public institutions from the time our children are young, while committing enough people to their causes out of their own self-interest that given our quiescence heretofore, they appear to be well ahead in the fight to win the future.

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Over the past four years, our investigative team has revealed repeated cases of Planned Parenthood affiliates covering up the statutory rape of underage girls and enabling sexual abusers.

The footage corroborates a 2002 extensive study of Planned Parenthood clinics performed by Life Dynamics. Through a series of phone calls, the study documents over 90% of over 800 abortion clinics willing to cover up sexual abuse.

In ten Planned Parenthood clinics, Live Action videos depict investigators posing as underage girls, as young as 13-years-old, saying they were impregnated by men over twice their age. Planned Parenthood’s typical response? “Whatever you tell us stays within these walls” (Alabama). Or, “I didn’t hear the age, I don’t want to know the age” (Indiana). Or, “You don’t have to say anything” (Arizona). Or, “Just say he’s 15″ (Tennessee).

We have also chronicled Planned Parenthood workers giving outright medical misinformation and manipulating vulnerable young women to purchase abortions. We’ve shown Planned Parenthood willing to accept funds for race-based abortions of unborn Black children. And for those who are willing to face the ultimate abuse of a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, we’ve released a video revealing what abortion does to the defenseless unborn child.

What will it take for Congress to stop funding this abusive and corrupt billion-dollar organization? What will it take for the Department of Justice to launch a thorough investigation of Planned Parenthood’s sexual abuse cover-up and medical misinformation? What will it take for us, the American public, to say, “Enough is enough!”

Hopefully this:

Our investigative team has taken things a step further. We have intensified the scenario. During the past three years of research, our team became aware of the horrific connection between human sex trafficking and “confidential” abortion clinics that refuse to report abuse. Read the testimonies of human trafficking victims. You’ll find heartbreaking stories of manipulation, rape, sexually contracted diseases, and coerced abortion.

Think about it. Where is a pimp going to send his victims if they get pregnant on the “job”? An abortion clinic, and preferably one that won’t ask any questions. What if those victims are young girls, kidnapped or drafted in from the US, or trafficked in from other nations? Planned Parenthood has demonstrated that they do not report abuse. They are experts at turning a blind eye and asking for “as little information as possible.”

But would Planned Parenthood go as far as aiding and abetting the sex trafficking of underage girls?

This video reveals a top-level Planned Parenthood worker, the manager of Planned Parenthood of Central New Jersey’s second largest clinic, making a secret deal with a pimp. Watch and listen as the Planned Parenthood manager, Amy Woodruff, advises the pimp how to make the trafficking of underage girls look “as legit as possible” (her words). Watch and listen as the manager advises the pimp how to ensure that his 14-year old victims of trafficking can still make money for him after secret abortions by performing sex acts “waist up” (her idea). Watch as she advises the pimp to instruct his girls to lie on the paper work about their ages, and identify themselves as “students” to get cheaper contraception and avoid mandatory reporting laws.

We are calling on Congress to immediately freeze all funding of Planned Parenthood. We request that the Department of Justice and FBI launch a full-scale investigation of Planned Parenthood and prosecute the aiding and abetting of human trafficking.

We are also calling on state authorities to immediately revoke the licenses of all Planned Parenthood clinics found covering up sex abuse. (more…)

Remember when President Obama signed into law The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as ObamaCare, surrounded by grinning Democrats? Before approaching the podium, Vice President Joe Biden whispered to Obama, in a gaffe picked up by open microphones, “this is a big @$#*ing deal!” Naturally, Biden was wrong.

Today, US District Court Judge Roger Vinson decided ObamaCare wasn’t really that much of a big @#&*ing deal after all. Judge Vinson, a Reagan appointee (may peace and happy birthday be upon the Gipper), found ObamaCare violated the commerce clause in the Constitution by creating an individual mandate forcing Americans to purchase health insurance.

Judge Vinson wrote:

“Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void. This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications.”

Judge Vinson even used President Obama’s own words against him:

“I note that in 2008, then-Senator Obama supported a health care reform proposal that did not include an individual mandate because he was at that time strongly opposed to the idea, stating that ‘if a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house.’”

Monday’s decision can only be viewed as great news for states and should encourage more anti-ObamaCare legislation and lawsuits. Over half of US states have already filed suits to halt ObamaCare on its anti-Constitutional encroachments. Others states have passed legislation that prohibits the federal government from forcing ObamaCare on their citizens. The judgment today is also a huge opportunity for states to drastically slow preparations for upcoming ObamaCare mandates. Since Judge Vinson stayed his decision because ObamaCare does not become active until 2014, the final decision on its constitutionality will come from the Supreme Court. However, this is the second ruling by a federal judge against the big government takeover of America’s healthcare system.

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Today, in 1979, Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile to Iran. It set in motion events which would topple the secular government and instill an Islamic ‘republic.’ Hmm…