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Video

[brid video=”13602″ player=”1929″ title=”Human Capital Episode 3 Planned Parenthood’s Custom Abortions for Superior Product”]

According to a former StemExpress employee, Planned Parenthood harvests intact organs, in this case a brain from a late-term male, even when the heart was still beating. In the third episode of “Human Capital,” a documentary web series produced by The Center for Medical Progress to shed light on the lucrative business of harvesting baby body parts, former StemExpress procurement technician Holly O’Donnell tells a gruesome tale from the Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s Alameda clinic in San Jose, California.

“Want to see something kind of cool?” O’Donnell says her supervisor asked her. “And she just taps the heart, and it starts beating. And I’m sitting here and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think… I don’t know if that constitutes it’s technically dead, or it’s alive.”

StemExpress, a biotech start-up that partnered with Planned Parenthood affiliates to purchase their aborted baby body parts and resell them for scientific experimentation, announced last week that it was ending its “business” relationship with the largest abortion-provider in the United States. The company ran to a Los Angeles Superior Court in late July following the release of the CMP undercover videos, which issued a temporary restraining order blocking the release of further footage containing officials, StemExpress themselves.

However, as a former employee, O’Donnell told CMP how her StemExpress supervisor instructed her to cut through the face of the fetus in order to get to the developed, rather expensive brain.

“She gave me the scissors and told me that I had to cut down the middle of the face,” O’Donnell said. “I can’t even describe what that feels like.”

The latest video introduces Dr. Ben Van Handel, the Executive Director of Novogenix Laboratories LLC, for the first time in the series. Handel, who is also the Procurement Manager of Advanced Bioscience Resources Inc., callously admits “there are times when after the procedure is done that the heart actually is still beating” and when “the fetus was already in the vaginal canal whenever we put her in the stirrups. It just fell out.”

Novogenix is the company that has harvested fetal organs from abortions done by Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Senior Director of Medical Services Dr. Deborah Nucatola, the star of the first video released by CMP. Nucatola is seen describing how Planned Parenthood sells the body parts of aborted fetuses, as well as admitting how she illegally alters procedure and uses partial-birth abortions to supply intact body parts.

“Today’s video contains heartrending admissions about the absolute barbarism of Planned Parenthood’s abortion practice and baby parts sales in which fetuses are sometimes delivered intact and alive,” CMP’s Project Lead David Daleiden said in a statement. “Planned Parenthood is a criminal organization from the top down and should be immediately stripped of taxpayer funding and prosecuted for their atrocities against humanity.”

According to a former employee, Planned Parenthood

Video

[brid video=”13601″ player=”1929″ title=”Clinton Refuses To Say Whether Or Not She Wiped The Server”]

Hillary Clinton faced toughed questions from Fox News’ Ed Henry in New Hampshire Tuesday amid reports the FBI believes someone tried to wipe the server. Further, the FBI says they are “optimistic” that they can recover at least some of the data.

“What, like with a cloth or something?” Hillary ridiculously said in response to Henry’s question about whether or not she “tried to wipe the whole server.”

Hillary-Clinton-Ed-Henry

Hillary Clinton takes questions from Fox News’ Ed Henry in New Hampshire Tuesday amid reports the FBI believes someone tried to wipe the server.

Meanwhile, a team of intelligence community reviewers also looking at emails from the server have identified 305 documents that have been referred to their agencies for further consultation, State Department lawyers said in a court filing Tuesday intended to update a federal judge on efforts to release the emails.

Hillary Clinton faced toughed questions from Fox

Economy

consumer-price-index-tv

(Photo: REUTERS)

The Labor Department reported Wednesday that its Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed inflation rose 0.1% in July, slightly below expectations for a 0.2% gain. The July report comes after consumer prices edged up 0.1 percent last month, and marks the sixth straight month of increases.

Excluding the volatile food and energy components, prices rose by the same margin, also missing expectations for a 0.2 percent increase. It was the second month the annual CPI increased after crude oil prices plunged further downward, pushing it into negative terrain in January. However, gains in the cost of shelter offset the index, indicating inflation pressures were stabilizing enough to support expectations of an interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve in mid-September.

Still, the Federal Reserve set an inflation target at 2 percent for rate hikes, and during the 12-months through July the CPI climbed just 0.2 percent. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the CPI rising 0.2 percent from June and gaining 0.2 percent from a year ago. Yet, with the central bank nevertheless expected to raise its short-term interest rate next month, economists are hoping the pace with which they tighten monetary policy will be slow.

The so-called core CPI, which strips out food and energy costs, inched up by just 0.1 percent last month after rising 0.2 percent in June. Shelter, which recorded its biggest increase in nearly 8-1/2 years, solely drove last month’s gain in the core CPI. In the 12 months through July, the core CPI increased 1.8 percent. It was the fourth time in five months that the 12-month change was 1.8 percent. The Federal Reserve uses neither the CPI nor the so-called core CPI when gauging the rate of inflation. The central bank has their own index that is not widely circulated.

Last month, gasoline prices rose 0.9 percent after rising 3.4 percent in June. Food prices climbed higher at 0.2 percent, down from a 0.3 percent increase in June when the bird flu crisis impacted egg prices. Egg prices rose only 3.3 percent after a June’s 18.3 percent explosion, which had been the biggest gain since August 1973. The index for shelter increased 0.4 percent, the largest increase since February 2007, after gaining 0.3 percent in June. Declining homeownership and a rental vacancy rate near a 22-year low is naturally pushing rents higher. If the Federal Reserve raises rates and mortgage cost increases, rental costs will likely continue to climb.

There were increases in the cost of medical care and apparel, while airline fares decreased by 5.6 percent, or the largest decline since December 1995. Prices for used cars and trucks and household furnishings and new motor vehicles fell.

The Labor Department reported Wednesday that its

World

ISIS-archaeologist -Khaled Asaad

Syrian officials are reported that Khaled Asaad, an 82-year-old archaeologist who had been in charge of overseeing the ancient site at Palmyra, has been beheaded by the Islamic State (ISIS). (Photos: REUTERS/AP)

Syrian officials are reporting that Khaled Asaad, an 82-year-old archaeologist in charge of overseeing the ancient site at Palmyra, was beheaded by ISIS militants. Antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim told Reuters that the family of Khaled Asaad had been informed that Asaad he been beheaded earlier in the day, and that his body was hanging from a column in the town’s main square.

Asaad’s death was also reported by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a vast network of activists on the ground in Syria reporting to PPD on other outlets. The groups said dozens of people gathered to witness the killing.

“Just imagine that such a scholar who gave such memorable services to the place and to history would be beheaded … and his corpse still hanging from one of the ancient columns in the center of a square in Palmyra,” Abdulkarim said. “The continued presence of these criminals in this city is a curse and bad omen on (Palmyra) and every column and every archaeological piece in it.”

Abdulkarim also said that Asaad had been interrogated by the militant Islamist terror group for over a month before his beheading. ISIS was reportedly seeking information about where the town’s archaeological and intrinsic treasures, which had been hidden in order to protect them ISIS. In the days and weeks before the city fell, Syrian officials said they had moved hundreds of statues out of concern that they would be destroyed by ISIS fighters.

Officials say the scholar did not break, and the ISIS barbarians got nothing out of him.

Asaad spent the better part of his life–over 50 years working–at the UNESCO World Heritage site, which attracted thousands of tourists each year seeking to gaze on the Roman-era ruins. He worked alongside U.S., French, German, and Swiss archaeologists on dozens of missions, as well as authored many books and scientific texts either individually or in cooperation with other Syrian or foreign archeologists, SANA said, including “The Palmyra Sculptures,” and “Zenobia, the Queen of Palmyra and the Orient.”

Abdulkarim described Asaad, who attended the University of Damascus, as “one of the most important pioneers in Syrian archaeology in the 20th century.” The country’s official news agency SANA reported that Asaad–who discovered several ancient cemeteries, caves and the Byzantine cemetery in the garden of the Museum of Palmyra–had been in charge of Palmyra’s archaeological site for four decades until 2003, when he retired. After retiring, al-Asaad worked as an expert with the Antiquities and Museums Department..

“Al-Asaad was a treasure for Syria and the world,” Khalil Hariri from Palmyra’s archaeological department told The Associated Press, speaking over the phone from the central Syrian city of Homs. “Why did they kill him?”

“Their systematic campaign seeks to take us back into pre-history,” he added. “But they will not succeed.”

ISIS drew international condemnation after it released videos showing members destroying artifacts in with hammers and drills in a museum in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and using explosives to wreck other sites. In March, ISIS members in Iraq razed 3,000-year old Nimrod and bulldozed 2,000-year old Hatra — both of which were UNESCO world heritage sites.

However, at this point, we do not know what ISIS has done or will do with Palmyra’s Roman-era ruins. In early July, the group released a video showing a child execute 25 government soldiers at a Roman amphitheater in Palmyra. In June, ISIS blew up two shrines that did not date from Roman times, but were regarded by the militants as pagan and sacrilegious under their strict interpretation of Islam.

 

Syrian officials are reporting that Khaled Asaad,

Video

Iran-Video-Jerusalem

A Islamist military alliance comprised of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard forces, Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists look on at Jerusalem.

A new Iran video shows Jerusalem being conquered by a military alliance comprised of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard forces, Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists. According to the Investigative Project, a Middle East terrorism research organization, the video was released just two weeks after the Iran nuclear deal was announced.

The video, which was produced by the Islamic Revolution Design House, showed the fighters preparing for battle with their gear, headbands, shoes and weapons, then descending on Jerusalem to conquer it.

[brid video=”13599″ player=”1929″ title=”Iran Video “Israel Must Be Obliterated””]

“One dons the IRGC [Revolutionary Guards] insignia on his left arm, another the emblem of the Iran-backed Iraqi Shia Badr Organization,” the Algemeiner detailed regarding the cast of fighters portrayed in the video which. “Yet a third dons a headband bearing the Lebanese Hezbollah logo, and a fourth is seen clad in Hamas’ characteristic balaclava and the Qassam Brigades green headband.”

At the end, Persian script appears saying “Israel must be obliterated,” or literally, “erased from the annals of history … and the youth will definitely see that day when it comes,” the Algemeiner added.

Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Tuesday tweeted his support for the groups in the video fighting Israel, tweeting:

A new Iran video shows Jerusalem being

Opinion

Bitcoin-Owners

Humans need rules. Rules make life more predictable. But when the rules multiply, the world needs some rule-breakers. The creator of the underground website Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, was sentenced to life in prison for creating an online space that allowed people to use bitcoins to buy and sell things. Some used Silk Road (named after Marco Polo’s trading route from China) to sell illegal drugs. People do that anyway, even without Silk Road; since the site’s closing, numerous similar websites have taken its place.

The prosecution implied (but never really argued) that Ulbricht planned murders. That would certainly be breaking a basic rule of civilization, but Ulbricht claims that wasn’t what he was up to — he just wanted to let other people engage in peaceful transactions.

If Ulbricht was telling the truth, then the world that rule-breakers like him envision is less creepy and dangerous than the government-run world in which we live now. Government enforces its rules with guns, and government force keeps increasing.

So I’m glad that today there are Rule Breaker Awards, sponsored by Skype, Nextiva and Constant Contact, given to entrepreneurs who make the world a better place by breaking rules.
Mike Michalowicz co-hosted the awards. Inspired by a pumpkin farmer who dedicated his life solely to growing giant pumpkins, Mike wrote a book called “The Pumpkin Plan” in which he discourages people from assuming that the way everyone else does something must be the best way.

One of this year’s Rule Breaker Award recipients is Alex Esposito, whose Free Ride shuttle service offers exactly that — free rides in New York State, Florida, San Diego and elsewhere, made possible by the low operating cost of Esposito’s little electric buses and by local businesses advertising on the vehicles.

I assumed offering free rides would not be a sustainable business, but I guess I just think in conventional terms. Apparently, the opportunity to advertise makes all sorts of neat services profitable — including TV, of course.

Esposito’s Free Ride idea seems so simple in retrospect it’s hard to believe no one else was doing it. It takes a rule-breaker to notice a different way to do things.

Government, with its recourse to guns and jails, imposes the worst rules. But corporate culture can be dumb, too. Ricardo Semler is a CEO who decided to break the usual rules of corporate decorum.

At age 21, he took over Semco, a family business in Brazil. Semler promptly threw out all sorts of rules.

There would be no dress code. No one would check expenses. “Spend what you need to, and the company trusts you.” There would be no storeroom padlocks or audits of petty-cash accounts for veteran employees — people who’d grown to be trusted by Semco. Workers would come and go according to their own schedules. They would even choose their salaries and their own supervisors!

This makes no sense to me, and I’m sure control freaks in human resources departments (Semco has no HR department) had heart attacks. Ricardo’s ideas sounded absurd by normal business standards, but it was a big boost to morale, and the company has done well. Even during Brazil’s recession, profits increased 500 percent. Sales grew from a few million dollars per year to more than a billion dollars.

Business people and government regulators often make the mistake of assuming that the world we live in is one in which the best practices have been pretty much figured out. Better not rock the boat — or it might all fall apart.

Then, along come some totally new ways of doing things. FedEx turned out to be much better than the U.S. Postal Service, teens ignore Hollywood and become rich and famous on YouTube, people skip hotels and find rooms via Airbnb and so on. Who knows what discoveries await if we don’t let tired old rules get in the way?

Humans need rules. Rules make life more

Policy

China's benchmark index fell by 5.9 per cent

A stock investor reacts as he checks prices in a brokerage house in Fuyang in central China’s Anhui province, 08 July 2015. Chinese stocks plunged on 08 July, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closing down 5.9 percent despite new measures to shore up share prices. The Shanghai Composite Index has tumbled by around 30 per cent since a peak on 12 June. (PHOTO: EPA/AN MING CHINA OUT)

I’m a huge fan of the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World. I always share the annual rankings when they’re released and I routinely cite EFW measures when writing about individual countries. But even a wonky economist like me realizes that there is more to life than economic liberty. So I was very excited to see that Ian Vásquez of the Cato Institute and Tanja Porčnik of the Visio Institute have put together The Human Freedom Index.

Here’s their description of the Index and some of the key findings.

The Human Freedom Index… presents a broad measure of human freedom, understood as the absence of coercive constraint. It uses 76 distinct indicators of personal and economic freedom… The HFI covers 152 countries for 2012, the most recent year for which sufficient data is available. …The United States is ranked in 20th place. Other countries rank as follows: Germany (12), Chile (18), Japan (28), France (33), Singapore (43), South Africa (70), India (75), Brazil (82), Russia (111), China (132), Nigeria (139), Saudi Arabia (141), Venezuela (144), Zimbabwe (149), and Iran (152).

Hong Kong and Switzerland are the top jurisdictions. Here’s the Freedom Index‘s top 20, including scores on both personal freedom and economic freedom.

The United States barely cracks the top 20. We rank #12 for economic freedom but only #31 for personal freedom. It’s worth noting that overall freedom is strongly correlated with prosperity.

Countries in the top quartile of freedom enjoy a significantly higher per capita income ($30,006) than those in other quartiles; the per capita income in the least-free quartile is $2,615. The HFI finds a strong correlation between human freedom and democracy. Hong Kong is an outlier in this regard. The findings in the HFI suggest that freedom plays an important role in human well-being

And here are some notes on methodology. The authors give equal weighting to both personal freedom and economic freedom.

One of the biggest challenges in constructing any index is the organization and weighting of the variables. Our guiding principle is that the structure should be simple and transparent. …The economic freedom index receives half the weight in the overall index, while safety and security and other personal freedoms that make up our personal freedom index receive the remaining weight.

Speaking of which, here are the top-20 nations based on personal freedom. You can also see how they scored for economic freedom and overall freedom.

To be succinct, Northern European nations dominate these rankings, with some Anglosphere jurisdictions also getting good scores. It shouldn’t be a surprise to learn that nations with economic freedom also tend to have personal freedom, but there are interesting exceptions.

Consider Singapore, with ranks second for economic freedom. That makes the country economically dynamic, but Singapore only ranks #75 for personal freedom. Another anomaly is Slovenia, which is in the top 20 for personal freedom, but has a dismal ranking of #105 for economic freedom.

By the way, the only two nations in the top 10 for both economic freedom and personal freedom are Switzerland and Finland.

I’ve already explained why Switzerland is one of the world’s best (and most rational) nations. Given Finland’s high ranking, I may have to augment the nice things I write about that country, even though I’m sure it’s too cold for my reptilian temperature preferences.

While the Fraser Institute’s "Economic Freedom of

Politics

Florida Lawmaker Calls for Probe into Housing and Urban Development Scandal

David-Jolly-HUD-Building-Split

U.S. Representative David Jolly, R-Fla., left, and the headquarters at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), right. (Photo: AP/PPD)

Seminole, FL – U.S. Representative David Jolly, R-Fla., is calling for a congressional probe into rampant fraud at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The Florida lawmaker’s announcement comes on the heels of a report by HUD’s Office of Inspector General that revealed over 25,000 families in the U.S. currently live in taxpayer supported housing, despite earning more than the threshold maximum allowable income.

“With an ever-growing wait-list for housing assistance from those truly in need, these incidences of waste, fraud and abuse must be eliminated immediately,” Rep. Jolly said in a statement to People’s Pundit Daily (PPD). “It is time to clean house at HUD.”

Eligibility is determined based on the total annual gross income and family size and is limited to U.S. citizens and, thanks to President Obama, “specified categories of non-citizens” who have eligible immigration status. While each situation varies by family and region, in general to qualify for federal subsidized housing through HUD, the total household income may not exceed 50 percent of the median income for the county or metropolitan area in which the family chooses to live.

The report cited a New York family with a combined household income of nearly $500,000, but is paying $1,574 a month to live in taxpayer subsidized public housing.

As a member of the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee for Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, which oversees federal dollars for HUD programs, Jolly sent a letter to Secretary Julian Castro Tuesday asking for a response and explanation of the report’s findings.

“Every American taxpayer deserves to know that their tax dollars are used for those rightfully in need of assistance, and not irresponsibly squandered by subsidizing those in the highest income brackets,” Jolly wrote.

Jolly also wrote Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart to demand a congressional investigation.

“I am requesting of you today that we immediately convene a congressional investigation and hearing upon our return to session to investigate this current failed housing policy by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and to identify together ways to use the annual budget process to permanently eliminate these incidents of waste, fraud and abuse,” Jolly wrote in his letter to Diaz-Balart.

In the Sunshine State, alone, the IG report found 297 instances in which someone was living in taxpayer-funded housing even though they were earning more than the maximum allowable income threshold.

U.S. Representative David Jolly, R-Fla., is calling

Polls

Animas-River-CO-EPA-spill

As it monitored the wastewater blowout that began Wednesday, the EPA took this photo of a sampling point near the source outside Silverton, Colo., on Sunday. (Photo: EPA)

When an EPA cleanup team with heavy equipment attempted to breach a dam at Gold King Mine in Colorado, they released million of gallons of contaminated water with toxic heavy metals into a creek that flows into the Animas River. Now, voters want “heads to roll” at the agency known for handing down draconian penalties to private companies for accidents far less damaging to the environment.

“It is really a tragic and very unfortunate incident,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy says, “EPA is taking responsibility to ensure that that spill is cleaned up.”

But, according to a new Rasmussen Reports survey, there is a wide divide between the voters’ definition of holding the EPA accountable and McCarthy’s definition of taking responsibility. The poll finds a majority of likely voters–51 percent–want the EPA employees involved with the spill to be fired, while just 35 percent believe they should be formally reprimanded. Only 3 percent told Rasmussen no disciplinary action should be taken against these federal workers, while 11 percent reported they were not sure.

The orange plume of toxic water forced the closure of seven public water supply systems before it even found its way into the San Juan River in New Mexico. Water samples taken after the spill showed lead concentrations in some places that were 3,500 times the normal levels in and around Durango. The wastewater also contained manganese, zinc, copper and cadmium, along with other contaminants.

The economic damage has been severe, as well. Many businesses on the river use the river for their primary revenue source. Those people who want to file claims for damages–either due to economic or health reasons–can and should do so by clicking HERE.

The national survey of 1,000 Likely U.S. Voters was conducted on August 13 and 16, 2015 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

A new survey finds American voters want

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