Court Drops Bogus Charges Against David Daleiden for Exposing Planned Parenthood Baby Part Sales

A court has dropped some of the bogus charges against pro-life advocate David Daleiden, who exposed the sales of body parts from aborted babies at Planned Parenthood abortion clinics and throughout the abortion industry.

The National Abortion Federation (NAF) dismissed seven out of eleven claims on Friday against Daleiden and his organization, the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), in court on Friday. In 2015, NAF sued David and CMP after they began releasing undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s trafficking of baby body parts. Buying and selling fetal tissue is illegal under federal law.

Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund attorney Charles LiMandri said NAF successfully obtained a “gag order” from the court preventing Daleiden and CMP, during the course of litigation, from releasing the undercover videos recorded at NAF abortion conferences.  Although dropping seven of the charges is a positive step, by dismissing the seven claims NAF is trying to speed up the case so it can secure a permanent gag order against David and CMP, which would block the release of the videos regardless of the case’s outcome, he said.

“NAF’s latest litigation maneuvering shows that this case has only ever been about one thing—an unconstitutional silencing of a pro-life hero. As the Trump Administration continues its investigation of NAF’s gruesome actions, we expect their lawyers to do everything they can to permanently silence David. After all, NAF realizes just as much as we do that criminal indictments for many of NAF’s members are only a matter of time,” LiMandri said in a statement.

NAF’s remaining claims accuse David and CMP of fraudulent misrepresentation, promissory fraud, breach of contract, and civil conspiracy. For instance, NAF complains that David broke the law because he allegedly violated the purported confidentiality agreements he signed at NAF’s annual conference.

LiMandri said: “NAF is using these purported confidentiality agreements to hide their criminal deeds. But the public has a right to know about the true nature of the abortion industry. We hope that as this case moves forward, the court concludes that NAF’s remaining claims are meritless.”

FCDF attorneys and co-counsel at the Thomas More Society will be filing a motion to dismiss NAF’s remaining claims.

LiMandri added: “Seven down; four to go.”

Daleiden tweeted the good news late Monday from his Twitter account.

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Rep. Gohmert: Hate Crime Laws Will Be ‘Used to Persecute Christians'

At a conference for young conservatives on Wednesday, House Representative Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said that he knew “hate crime legislation … would one day be used to persecute Christians.”

At the Turning Point USA High School Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C., Gohmert said, "I knew 10 years ago, when hate crime legislation was being pushed, that it would one day be used to persecute Christians, and that is coming about – U.S. Commission on Civil Rights talks about this hate group, evangelical Christians."

Gohmert was referring to the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, which includes additional penalties to criminal violent acts that are motivated by hate.

In a commentary he wrote on the hate crime law, Gohmert gives an example where someone who shoots a homosexual after hearing a religious leader preach “that homosexuality is wrong and leads to the ultimate destruction of moral society,” it could be argued that “the teaching of the minister/rabbi/imam is what ‘induced’” the shooter to commit the crime.

He also mentioned his commentary during his speech Wednesday, saying, “The message of the federal hate crime bill, that is still in law, is if you are going to hurt me, shoot me, brutalize me, but please don't hate me.  Make it a random, senseless crime of violence instead.  You’ll walk free from the federal charges under the new Hate Crimes bill if you do.”

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Nude Customer Reveals a lot about Gym

If you think you’ve had a rough month, try being in the PR department for Planet Fitness! First, the gym was slammed for revoking the membership of a woman who complained about a biological man sharing her locker room. Then, in an ironic twist, the same argument they used to defend that outrage came back to haunt them when a 34-year-old man decided to visit a Massachusetts chain and workout in the nude!

I thought it was a “judgment-free zone,” 34-year-old Eric Stagno told police. That is, after all, what Planet Fitness told the woman in Florida (and another in Michigan) about sharing private spaces with the opposite sex. If it’s okay to let men undress in front of women in their locker rooms, why not out in the open?

“The story we got from witnesses,” police captain Brett Morgan said, “was that the guy walked in, stripped down right there in front, left the clothes and belongings at the front desk, walked back and forth across the gym a couple of times and then settled in over at the yoga mats.” Other exercisers said they felt “sick,” “unsafe,” and “disgusted” — the same words that could have been used by women who were shocked to find out that Planet Fitness’s unposted policy was to let men expose themselves in the women’s showers or locker rooms any time they wanted!

Unlike Jordan Rice, who was supposedly justified in horrifying “Mrs. H” in Florida, Eric Stagno was charged with “indecent exposure, lewdness and disorderly conduct.” Apparently, Planet Fitness isn’t always judgment-free — just when it comes to political correctness. And that’s where their logic breaks down. Extremists, like the ones at Planet Fitness, who think it’s okay to put women in dangerous situations because “tolerance,” don’t seem to understand that once you abandon millennia of moral values, it’s impossible to draw a line. How can you say to one person that public indecency is wrong if you allow it behind locker room doors?

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Diversity worship only divides us further

“BBC CHIEF STUNNED BY SECRET SEX SURVEY.” The headline blaring from Britain’s Mail on Sunday one balmy morning in London a few weeks ago was irresistible. And the news report didn’t disappoint. “Can someone have a guess at how many people we’ve got who have disclosed they are transgender at the BBC? Ten? Anyone else? Twenty?” asked the BBC’s director of diversity at a social policy forum last month.

“I’ll put you out of your misery. We’ve got 417 people within the BBC who have said they are transgender, almost 2 per cent of the ­organisation.”

Using personal information from staff, diversity bean counters at Britain’s national broadcaster found 11 per cent of its employees are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Diversity executive Tunde Ogungbesan says that while the number of transgender people is “very, very high”, the broadcaster needs more lesbians.

The real misery is that we count this stuff at all. Extrapolating from the diversity director’s comment that “what gets measured gets done”, the next advertisement for a BBC job will logically need to seek a candidate with the following qualifications: must be able to write, have proven reporting skills, work effectively in a small team and be a lesbian. And how do they check the veracity of a candidate meeting that last stipulation? If only this were a facetious ­scenario.

A few days later, on July 4, former US president Bill Clinton tweeted: “E pluribus unum — out of diversity comes a deeper strength and unity rooted in the timeless ideals that we celebrate today. It’s ‘We the People,’ not ‘Us vs Them’…”

If only that were true. Instead, we are being sold a lemon every time someone says diversity makes us stronger and unites us.

Diversity, the new buzzword, has much in common with its older sibling, multiculturalism. The celebration of diversity and the daily condemnation of white male privilege has morphed into a project that divides us. When anchored to group identities, this new diversity project becomes the antithesis of the liberal model that emerged from the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment. The timeless ideal that all individuals are revered as equal regardless of colour, creed and gender is being turned on its head.

To be fair to the BBC, by crunching the numbers about the sexual identity of its staff, the diversity bean counters are simply doing their bit, as disciples of this new project. But it didn’t need to unfold this way. Respecting diversity is admirable because it unifies us. Worshipping diversity as some kind of new age god in a secular world is destructive.

The more we label and encourage people to join smaller identity groups defined by being transgender or black lesbian or Muslim gay, the “other” — the outsiders — grow larger in number. There are more people outside the group to be suspicious of, to fear and even loathe.

People gathering in groups, associating with tribes, preferring their own kind, is as old as the history of mankind. As English philosopher Roger Scruton said as he watched the 1968 Paris protests — when middle-class students turned out to protest without really knowing what they supported — craving membership is “a deep adaptation of the species”.

Whereas people in previous centuries joined or were born into religious communities, in the modern secular West the search for meaning is leading people to seek out different group identities. It raises the real threat of a new and different form of sectarianism as politics and policies, even if well-meaning, encourage people to be defined by smaller and smaller group identities, fracturing along sex, sexual identity, race, colour, creed or other such traits.

Group identities don’t unify people, they build walls between people. Loyalty to the tribe, for example, means members are less likely to publicly countenance divergence from group orthodoxy even if they disagree in private. Tribal loyalty explains why it’s harder for an indigenous man, such as Warren Mundine, or an indigenous woman, such as Bess Price, to diverge from indigenous orthodoxy on anything from welfare to family violence to education and employment.

It explains why feminists within the #MeToo movement cling together, even if they harbour private reservations about trivial complaints about bad sex that have formed part of the ­movement.

Tribal loyalty explains why so few Muslims will say what Ayaan Hirsi Ali dares to say about aspects of Islam. Only the bravest speak up, understanding that they will be cast out as apostates, joining the ranks of “other” — people beyond the group — who are treated with suspicion, and worse.

Tribal loyalty explains how the heartbreaking case of Nia Wilson has given identity politics a new battleground. Last weekend the teenager was changing trains with her sister in Oakland, California, when a white man stabbed her in the throat. Police are exploring a race-hate motive. When I typed Wilson’s name into Google, up popped actress Anne Hathaway’s thoughts on white privilege. Not a news piece about what happened to Wilson.

Rachel Cargle, who describes herself as the “Beyonce of Academia” created an Instagram post exclusively for people of colour to share their feelings about Wilson. “No white women, no men,” she wrote. She asked people to tag their favourite white feminists who had yet to talk about Wilson.

The misguided Beyonce of Academia is building walls. Separating feminists according to skin colour creates more otherness, more fear, more suspicion. It does not help black women. It creates “us vs them”.

Worshipping diversity also has led to more victimhood, not empowerment. Just as tribes compete, grouping people according to sex, sexual identity or other human traits fuels a marketplace of outrage. Different groups vie for top billing as the biggest victims, to attract public attention or policy responses or both.

Over at Meanjin, a left-wing artsy publication, a few indigenous women were outraged when, on the last cover, editor Jonathan Green decided to cross out the indigenous title of the magazine, replacing it with #MeToo. How dare white feminists trump indigenous women. Green confessed his sins and apologised profusely for his white, male privilege.

The diversity cult is not breaking down barriers by encouraging intellectual sharing of ideas and experiences between people. Instead, it’s constantly searching for malfeasants guilty of the new sin of for cultural appropriation.

This month, Scarlett Johansson pulled out of playing a transgender man in Rub & Tub, a movie about Dante “Tex” Grill, who ran brothels in 1970s Pittsburgh. Her first response to claims that a “cisgender” woman should not play a transgender man was to direct the complaints to media representatives of Jeffrey Tambor, Jared Leto and Felicity Huffman, three cisgender actors who won rave reviews, awards and nominations for playing transgender women.

Inevitably, Johansson succumbed, saying she was grateful that the casting decision sparked a conversation about diversity. But it wasn’t much of a conversation. It came down to a stifling and one-dimensional, simplistic story that only a transgender man can play the role of a transgender man. And when journalist Daniella Greenbaum wrote a piece for the website Business Insider defending an actress who was hired to act in a role as a transgender man, her column was spiked by editors for “violating editorial standards”.

Respecting diversity should encourage us to step into the shoes of someone else, to empathise with their stories that define them as human beings. Instead, in the Age of Diversity, we are told a single story about people premised on their sex, sexual identity or skin colour.

In a TED talk some years ago, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie spoke superbly about the danger of the single story. She recalled one of her professors telling her that one novel “was not authentically African”.

“Now I was quite willing to contend that there were a number of things wrong with the novel,” said the author of Half of a Yellow Sun. “But I had not quite imagined that it had failed at achieving something called African authenticity. In fact, I did not know what African authenticity was. The professor told me that my characters were too much like him, an educated, middle-class man. My characters drove cars, they were not starving. Therefore, they were not authentically African.”

Adichie confessed to falling for single stories about others. Growing up in Nigeria, she saw the family’s house boy only through a prism of poverty. When she visited the boy’s home she was startled to see a beautiful multi-coloured basket woven by his brother. “It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could make anything,” she said. “Their poverty was my single story about them.”

When people choose to define themselves according to a single identity, they encourage a single story about their sex, or their sexual identity or their skin colour with a focus on negatives. Black Lives Matter tells a tiny, incomplete, story about black people in America. A dance performance last month, Where We Stand, suffered the same flaw because a dance student thought it clever to force whites to stay in the lobby while people of colour, brown people, indigenous people and members of the Asian diaspora were invited to enter the theatre.

Revering diversity encourages an ugly backlash, too, attracting opportunist grandstanders such as Canadian woman Lauren Southern, who arrived in Australia wearing a T-shirt that read “IT’S OK TO BE WHITE”. It’s not smart to answer toxic identity politics with tit-for-tat toxicity, where people treat their pale skin as a badge of honour. Southern’s white identity politics marks a low point of the new sectarianism. We are regressing further and further from the liberal project that treats all ­humans as equal regardless skin colour.

As Adichie said, telling one story based on negatives about people flattens their experience. “The consequence of the single story is this: it robs people of dignity — it makes recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasis how we are different rather than how we are similar.”

In a recent podcast, Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, recalled the 1934 experiment by American psychologist Richard LaPiere when he researched whether people were more racist in practice or theory. LaPiere took a Chinese student to a restaurant that had a sign saying they did not serve Chinese. At a time of growing American resentment towards Chinese, the student and the psychologist ordered and ate their meal without a hitch. LaPiere took the Chinese student, and his young Chinese wife, on a road trip across America, visiting 251 establishments, bars, bowling alleys, hotels and ­restaurants. The couple was denied service once. When LaPiere returned to his campus office, he sent questionnaires to each place — “would you serve members of the Chinese race?” More than 90 per cent said no.

Defining people according to race elicits divisive reactions, whereas a name and a face is a human story that attracts respect and empathy. As Brooks said: “Stories unite. Identities divide.”

Remember that next time an overpaid corporate executive or public bureaucrat champions diversity using a set of numbers based on gender or sexual identity or race.

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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