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This time, more than 30 have signed a letter saying they'll vote to shut the whole government down unless Planned Parenthood is totally defunded. They seem determined to put on quite a political circus.

Reading their letter, a couple of things jumped out at me. One is that all of the signatories are men.
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Consider for just a moment. According to the highly respected Guttmacher Institute, in 2010--the most recent year for which comprehensive data are available:

• Contraceptive care at publicly supported centers like Planned Parenthood helped women avert 2.2 million unintended pregnancies every year, which would have resulted in 1.1 million unplanned births, 761,000 abortions and 164,000 preterm or low-birth-weight births.

• Pap and HPV testing and HPV vaccination at publicly supported centers like Planned Parenthood prevented 3,700 cases of cervical cancer and 2,100 cervical cancer deaths.

• This resulted in net public savings of $13.6 billion, or $7.09 saved for every public dollar spent.

The White House said Obama would not sign any bill that included the Senate amendment eliminating the group's funding.

"By eliminating federal funding for a major provider of health care, the Senate amendment ... would limit access to health care for women, men, and families across the nation, and disproportionately impact low-income individuals," the White House statement said.

The Democrat said interviews and documentation from his office's investigation show that tissue from the more than 300 surgical abortions performed at the St. Louis Planned Parenthood in June was properly incinerated. The nearly 50-page report details contracts that Koster said track fetal tissue from the abortion clinic to a pathology lab and then to an incinerator.

"We have discovered no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Planned Parenthood's St. Louis facility is selling fetal tissue," Koster said in a statement.
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At least five other states — Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and South Dakota — also have cleared Planned Parenthood of breaking the law.

CHAFFETZ: Your compensation in 2009 was $353,000. Is that correct?

RICHARDS: I don't have the figures with me. But …

CHAFFETZ: It was. Congratulations. In 2013, your compensation went up some $240,000. Your compensation, we're showing based on tax returns, is $590,000, correct?

RICHARDS: That's not my annual compensation. I — actually, my annual compensation is $520,000 a year. I believe there was a program that the board sort of put together for a three-year — I'm happy — again, I think we have been extremely forthcoming with all of our documents.

And here's another between Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah) and Richards. Love was inquiring about Medicaid patients who use Planned Parenthood clinics:

LOVE: There is no reason why we can't provide those options elsewhere, where people can have their choice as to where they go.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, on Friday announced the eight Republicans who will sit on a special committee to investigate "the grisly practices of big abortion providers," according to a statement from his office.

The speaker notes that multiple House committees have already investigated and grilled leaders from Planned Parenthood, the women's health care and abortion provider, over a series of controversial and misleading videos aimed at taking down the organization. However, Boehner said, "We still don't have the full truth."

The new committee "will have the resources and the subpoena power to get to the bottom of these horrific practices, and build on our work to protect the sanctity of all human life," Boehner said.

Dermish says in the video that she does not use the chemical digoxin, used to kill fetuses in the womb, before 20 weeks. She doesn’t say if she uses another chemical during the more than eight-minute, edited clip, and CMP asserts that means babies are delivered alive and killed outside of the womb. Dermish says she has used “ultrasound guidance” to manipulate fetuses for feet-first abortions in the video, a practice CMP describes as a “hallmark” of the illegal partial-birth abortion procedure.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson issued a preliminary injunction after Planned Parenthood challenged the state's move to terminate its contract to provide services under Medicaid, the federal and state healthcare program for the poor.

The judge wrote that Alabama had not provided a reason for terminating its agreement with the Planned Parenthood affiliate serving the region, as required under federal law. Planned Parenthood, which has clinics in Mobile and Birmingham, is an abortion provider.

Malcolm wrote:This is why the PP folk got nervous when those bullshit vids got dropped. Fucking psychos like this come out of the woodwork. Could you say he would've gone off anyhow? Maybe. But just because you got a pile of dry powder doesn't mean you should spark the fucker.