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Obama to attack guns as public-health threat?
2nd Amendment advocates worry over opinions of OSHA nominee
By Bob Unruh
Second Amendment advocates are expressing alarm that the most significant attack on gun rights across the United States in years soon could come in the form of a workplace “safety” regulation under President Obama’s nominee to run the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Obama has nominated David Michaels, a George Washington University professor and the chief of the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy, which reportedly partially is funded by George Soros.
“The controversial OSHA nominee and left-leaning public health advocate also seems to have strong views on firearms,” wrote Walter Olson at Overlawyered.com.
“That’s by no means irrelevant to the agenda of an agency like OSHA, because once you start viewing private gun ownership as a public health menace, it begins to seem logical to use the powers of government to urge or even require employers to forbid workers from possessing guns on company premises, up to and including parking lots, ostensibly for the protection of co-workers.”
WND has reported on Obama’s czars and has published a Whistleblower magazine issue on the “shadow government” officials gradually being installed in positions of power in Washington.
Two already have met problems. Green jobs czar Van Jones quit his post after reporting, largely by WND, of his self-described communist beliefs and his belief that the Bush administration was behind the 9/11 attacks. Also, White House communications director Anita Dunn, who launched a verbal assault on Fox News as an “arm” of the GOP, reportedly will step down this month.
Now comes Michaels, who although he would have to be approved by the U.S. Senate, comes with views that concern Second Amendment advocates.
Only two years ago, Michaels condemned proposals in Georgia and Florida that would have allowed workers to carry guns to and from their places of work for protection.
He continued in his 2007 writing to laud the ability of the federal government to respond by creating new laws to ban activities or behaviors.
David Michaels
“When the toll of preventable and pointless deaths or injuries from any single event or related events becomes so great, or particular aspects of the story bring it to the public’s attention, our nation invariably demands more and stronger regulation, not less,” Michaels wrote at the time.
“We saw this recently with the disaster at West Virginia’s Sago Mine, when a mine explosion and failed rescue attempts resulted in the deaths of 14 miners. Within months, Congress passed the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response (MINER) Act,” he said.
“This is not true only of recent times. On the heels of the Elixir Sulfanilamide scandal, in which a medicine manufactured with antifreeze killed scores of children, Congress passed the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, requiring for the first time that pharmaceutical manufacturers prove the safety of their products before marketing them,” he continued.
“It’s hard to count all of the lives that this Act has saved, but one example stands out: The United States avoided the plague of thalidomide-related birth defects that ravaged Europe in the early 1960s as a result of controls granted the FDA under that legislation. A regulatory hero, FDA medical officer Dr. Frances Kelsey, had blocked U.S. licensing of thalidomide on the basis of inadequate safety data,” he wrote.
“In the U.S., we see an average of one gun-related homicide every 45 minutes, or 32 each day,” he wrote. “These are usually treated as isolated incidents, until a horrific event like the Virginia Tech massacre reawakens the public and strengthens public health advocates who are attempting to prevent gun violence.”
At RedCounty.com, writer Bryan Myrick noted that the Washington Times has urged the Senate to reject Michaels’ nomination.
“OSHA is an agency that already has a well-earned reputation for abusing its authority and reaching beyond its stated purpose. Add one zealot and it easily becomes an oppressive entity with immense power over all American businesses, large and small. At a time in which America’s businesses desperately need the freedom to responsibly pursue earning profits and put workers back on the payroll, the chemical potency of combining Obama’s left-wing agenda with an anti-business zealot manager at OSHA could prove toxic,” Myrick wrote.
The first vote on Michaels’ nomination already was canceled by the Senate Committee on Health, Labor, Education and Pensions.
At the Examiner, gun rights writer David Codrea warned that some “public health” excuse could be used for imposing draconian restrictions on gun owners.
He cited the comment from a director of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Control and Prevention that, “We need to revolutionize the way we look at guns, like what we did with cigarettes. Now it [sic] is dirty, deadly, and banned.”
“Does anyone doubt that Michaels will bring a similarly creative agenda to apply through regulatory measures under the guise of ‘occupational safety and health?’” he asked.
The BD Law firm in Washington posted a statement that Michaels is expected to bring major changes if approved. The law firm quoted Michaels’ writing from earlier this year that OSHA “badly needs a change in direction and philosophy” and it should include a “campaign to change the workplace culture of safety.”
The National Gun Rights organization called him an “anti-gunner.”
Columnist Dave Kopel at the Independence Institute in Colorado said, “Plenty of Obama’s administration appointees have a longer record of anti-gun activism than David Michaels, but perhaps none of them have the ability to make such a dramatic, instant change in the lives of law-abiding gun owners.
“By its own fiat, OSHA could outlaw the possession of firearms in every workplace and every employee parking lot in the United States,” he wrote.
“That David Michaels is anti-gun is undisputed,” he continued.
“The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution means that a valid federal law or regulation wins in any conflict with a state law. Many states have laws that protect the rights of employees to store lawful firearms in parking lots at work. If an OSHA regulation prohibiting such storage existed, the federal regulation would trump state law,” he said.
“Under Michaels, OSHA could write a regulation stating that it is illegal for any business to allow guns in the workplace or in parking lots. No handgun could be locked in the trunk of a car, even if the owner has a Right-to-Carry license. No rifle could be stored in the car, even if there’s no ammunition around and the gun will be dropped off at the gunsmith after work,” he said.
Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, had supported Washington, D.C.’s ban on handguns before it was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. And since Obama has been in office, he’s already advocated for a treaty that would require a federal license for hunters to reload their ammunition, has expressed a desire to ban “assault” weapons, has seen a plan to require handgun owners to submit to mental health evaluations and sparked a rush on ammunition purchases with his history of anti-gun positions.
Besides its reporting on Van Jones and Anita Dunn, WND previously reported on the controversy over the appointment of Kevin Jennings, a homosexual rights promoter, to oversee the office of school safety in the Department of Education.
Regulatory czar Cass Sunstein also has, among other issues, stated that marriage discriminates against singles
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47 minutes of abortion sting video released
FROM WND
Pro-lifers challenge Planned Parenthood to be equally open
The full 47 minutes of a video done by Live Action Films revealing Indianapolis Planned Parenthood staff members covering up a reported statutory rape has been released, along with a challenge from pro-life activists for the abortion industry leader to be equally open.
The video, available on the Live Action Films website, reveals in real time the sequence of events highlighted in an earlier edited release.
As WND reported at the time, the video shows a staff member for Planned Parenthood counseling a “pregnant 13-year-old” to avoid mandatory statutory rape reporting laws by suggesting the patient look into the states that surround Indiana.
In Indiana, sex involving an adult and a 13-year-old is a felony, and any time a minor under 14 is involved, law enforcement must be contacted immediately. However, the video released by LiveActionFilms.org reveals a counselor suggesting how the requirements can be avoided.
Just days earlier, the organization unveiled a video about a pro-life activist, 20-year-old Lila Rose, going into a Bloomington, Ind., Planned Parenthood facility undercover where a “nurse” ignored the apparent felony of a young teen pregnant by a 31-year-old and coached the “patient” to protect the assailant.
Now Live Action has released the full 47-minute video of the undercover operation in Indianapolis, with the unedited footage showing the story in real time as clinic employees met Rose, again posing as a 13-year-old, and heard her describe how a 31-year-old man had impregnated her.
 Lila Rose |
“Once in the counseling room, a Planned Parenthood nurse assured Rose that she would not report the statutory rape and instructed her how to obtain a secret abortion across state lines,” the organization said.
But Rose also challenged Planned Parenthood to show transparency.
Citing a letter released earlier, Rose called on Betty Cockrum, president of Planned Parenthood of Indiana, to release the company’s data on how often it provides birth control, pregnancy testing, STD testing and abortion services to minors under the age of 14 and how often it has reported these cases to Child Protective Services.
The organization has not responded, Rose said.
“If Planned Parenthood has concern for the children of Indiana, as they claim, why don’t they disclose the statistics that will help law enforcement apprehend the scope of the problem?” Rose said. “We are willing to be open and transparent about our methods and activities because we have nothing to hide.
“Can Planned Parenthood of Indiana say the same?”
The organization eventually may have no choice. Rose said state authorities in Indiana now may open an investigation into Planned Parenthood’s handling of statutory rape cases.
The video is part of Live Action Films’ Mona Lisa Project, which across the summer of 2008 documented inside information about the abortion industry.
The project says despite “a consistent pattern of lawlessness and abuse, Planned Parenthood receives over $300 million from taxpayers.”
The tax-exempt “nonprofit” also netted $100 million in profits last year.
One Planned Parenthood staff resigned following release of the Indianapolis video. When the similar video was released from the Bloomington, Ind., Planned Parenthood, one employee was fired.
Rose, who already was honored for her pro-life work this year, also recently was named the 2008 Person of the Year by Operation Rescue.
“Lila Rose exemplifies the new wave of pro-life activism and best reflects Operation Rescue’s own efforts to expose illegal conduct in our nation’s abortion mills,” Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said.
“Her work has helped raise public awareness of the seedy underbelly of the abortion industry and has helped to launch criminal investigations that we pray will eventually hold out-of- control abortionists accountable for their criminal acts,” he said.
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Pro-life activist fights ‘obscene’-sign charge
FROM WND
Anti-abortion gubernatorial candidate in court after campaign banner seized
By Jay Baggett
 |
| Neal Horsley with “obscene” sign |
Political pundits may not give Neal Horsley a chance at being Georgia’s next governor, but the anti-abortion activist and gubernatorial candidate still believes the First Amendment guarantees his right to try … without the police seizing his campaign sign and charging him with obscenity.
On Thursday, Horsley appeared in Carrollton, Ga., municipal court seeking dismissal of an obscenity charge for carrying a campaign sign displaying the head of an aborted fetus last summer.
The judge refused to dismiss the charges and, when Horsley demanded a jury trial, transferred the case to county court where it will be heard in a few weeks.
Horsley is perhaps better known for operating the “Nuremberg Files” website in the late 1990s that featured names of abortion practitioners. He was accused by abortion advocates of inciting violence for crossing out names of doctors who had died or who had been killed.
His website featured prominently in Planned Parenthood vs. American Coalition of Life Activists, despite the fact the defendents did not own or operate the Nuremberg website and its actual owner, Horsley, was not a named party in the case. Nonetheless, the Portland, Ore., pro-life activists were hit with a judgment of $109 million for creating “Deadly Dozen” posters on which the names of 12 abortion doctors were listed.
Horsley’s latest troubles began on July 4 when he kicked off his third-party campaign for governor in downtown Carrollton, wearing a large sign on his back showing the head of an aborted baby and singing an anti-abortion ballad he had written – “The Dead Baby on My Back Blues”.
Police told the Creator’s Rights Party candidate to remove the sign.
When Horsley returned to campaign at Carrollton City Hall several days later, police confiscated the sign and charged him with obscenity.
With the case not being heard in county court for several weeks, Horsley objected to the city keeping his campaign sign as evidence, the Rome News-Tribune reported.
“That ain’t right,” Horsley said.
“My problem is I’m running for governor and the clock is ticking,” Horsley told the judge. “I’m effectively being short-circuited in campaigning.”
Hiding teen ‘rapes’ continues at Planned Parenthood
FROM WND
3rd video showing assault on ’15-year-old’ brings no report
By Bob Unruh
A new video released by the same people who caught Planned Parenthood businesses in Indiana ignoring an apparent case of statutory rape in their rush to offer a juvenile an abortion now have released a video about the Margaret Sanger Center in Tucson, Ariz., where a nurse apparently has done the same thing.
An undercover pro-life activist who visited the Tucson Planned Parenthood business, explaining she was 15 and her boyfriend was 27, was told how to go to court to obtain an abortion without having her parents notified, and was encouraged not to have her 27-year-old “boyfriend” along when she appeared in court.
The video was posted on YouTube by Live Action Films, which had posted videos earlier revealing the results of its undercover investigations in Indiana.
A spokeswoman for the Planned Parenthood business in Tucson told WND officials “are aware” of the film.
“Currently, we’re looking into it. We do take this very seriously,” said spokeswoman Jo Nestor.
The video from Live Action Films explained that in Arizona, sex between an adult and a 15-year-old is a felony, and “if an adult-child sexual relationship is revealed, law enforcement must be contacted immediately.”
The video reveals how an undercover activist goes into the clinic, identifies herself as Lizzie and provides an age of 15. Her “boyfriend’s” age of 27 also is revealed.
The Planned Parenthood worker, whose identity was not immediately revealed, started describing abortion procedures and costs.
The worker promised to give the “patient” the “paperwork” to take to court to obtain a judicial bypass on a parental notification requirement.
She also suggested, “when you go in to see the judge that you dress up nicely, you know, you want to look mature… I am not saying like a grown women, like an old woman, but, you know, just mature that you know what you are getting into.”
 Lila Rose |
The age of the boyfriend again was raised.
“Is he not a minor?” the Planned Parenthood nurse, who identifies herself as Araceli, asks. When UCLA student Lila Rose, in her undercover role, says, “He’s 27,” the nurse urges the girls not to bring him to the hearing: “I wouldn’t take him with me, no. I mean: don’t take him.”
The hidden-camera footage results are the work of Rose and her friend, Jackie Stoller.
The two also were integral in obtaining statements from two Planned Parenthood businesses in Indiana that involved similar suspected illegal activity.
The video is the third to be released in a national undercover probe called the “Mona Lisa Project.”
It focuses on Planned Parenthood workers’ response to reports of statutory rape.
In the cases released to date, Planned Parenthood clinics hide the identity of the statutory rapist and offer secret abortions.
“These videos demonstrate that Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, is entrenched in an organization-wide policy of circumventing state law and covering up the sexual abuse of young girls,” said Rose, Live Action’s president.
In the Indiana cases, both clinics either suspended or fired employees, and state prosecutors have begun investigating, Live Action officials said.
“Our footage gives the Arizona public and law enforcement a rare window into Planned Parenthood’s ruthless abortion-first ideology,” Rose stated. “With abortion as their first and only solution for the abuse victim, Planned Parenthood assists sexual predators by violating the very Arizona state laws that protect children.”
The Sanger Center in Tucson is named after Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, who, according to Answers.com, once suggested Congress set up a “Parliament of Population” whose goal would be “to raise the level and increase the general intelligence of population.”
The webside source said when Germany adopted the principles of eugenics to create a “master race,” Sanger failed to denounce the Nazi tactics. In a letter, she wrote, “The campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of eugenics….”
She included among her beliefs that there are instances when there should be forced prevention of child-bearing.
“The undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind,” she said, according to the website.
WND previously reported on the earlier videos, which remain available at Live Action Films.
One case revealed a staff member for Planned Parenthood counseling a “pregnant 13-year-old” to avoid mandatory statutory rape reporting laws by suggesting the patient look into the states that surround Indiana.
Another showed a “nurse” ignoring the apparent felony of a young teen pregnant by a 31-year-old and coached the “patient” to protect the assailant.
Rose, who has been honored for her pro-life work, also recently was named the 2008 Person of the Year by Operation Rescue.
“Lila Rose exemplifies the new wave of pro-life activism and best reflects Operation Rescue’s own efforts to expose illegal conduct in our nation’s abortion mills,” Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said.
