Stand with Truth

Finally, straight forward proof of the dramatic loss of liberty accompanying Speaker Pelosi’s health care “reform” bill. The debate has always truly been about liberty - who gets to decide what and when.

Speaker Pelosi’s bill, H.R. 3962, requires all Americans to a purchase a minimum health care insurance plan. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this basic required plan will cost the average family $15,000 a year by 2016. Failure to purchase this insurance will result in a substantial fine.

Failure to pay the fine can constitute “felony willful evasion” which is punishable by a $250,000 fine and up to five years in prison. (H.R. 3962, §7201).[i]

Long ago, much of America’s political establishment and much of America’s business community abandoned principle when dealing with health care issues. This abandonment ushered formularies, treatment tables, Marx and bureaucrats into the examination room.

Currently, government spending comprises 46 cents of every health care dollar. Private insurance pays 42 cents of every dollar and the patient represents only 12 cents of the dollar. It is obvious who has the power in this equation.

Large insurance interests are willing to sell out liberty and support health care “reform” if they have the additional guaranteed premiums from the healthy and government is the only power that can create a market through the force of law.

The insurance companies have threatened to oppose any bill that does not create this new government generated and mandated market. The companies argued that they would go bankrupt under the Democratic plan due to the requirement to provide coverage to high cost patients with pre-existing conditions. The companies claimed these new mandated premiums are necessary for solvency. Pelosi needs the votes and cannot afford a full scale war with insurance.

And so Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats have offered the uninsured an offer they cannot pass up: buy insurance or go to jail!

And so now you have it - the most tangible example of the dramatic freedom Americans are in danger of surrendering.

With this plan the insurance industry can count on a government created and mandated market generating additional revenue while the left can have a dramatic increase in government power.

This is the common pattern of the leftist incrementalism. First, highlight an issue and generate a perceived crisis. Next, claim a simple solution to the crisis and build on the media’s default belief that all solutions, all resolutions and all answers are found in the beltway. If there is a problem, there must be a government answer. Third, motivate constituencies around the issue and buy them off with the sharing of government power and monies.

Those at the table often are willing to sell out when they consider some government action inevitable and do not arrive at the negotiation with any guiding principles. Government always has enough power and/or money to share.

As a result government expands and another part of the American economy becomes less dependent on markets and more dependent on government power. This converts a portion of the American electorate to supporting ever increasing government expenditures in order to protect their share of the government pie. This formula for power expansion is virtually unlimited when we are willing to borrow from tomorrow.

And in the future, when the bills cannot be paid, government can simply raise the fine on the working poor who choose not to have health care or, simply pull the plug on grandma.

Secret court orders silencing witnesses, millions of campaign cash flowing to pro-abortion government officials, unexplained judicial delays and mainstream media ignoring relevant facts. The saga of trying to hold the abortion industry accountable to the law continues in Kansas - the nation’s leading late-term abortion capital.

This is the lead of Denis Boyles article published by National Review Online.

Read the full story here.

Does ProKanDo Recent Ethics Problems Indicate Abortion Patient Names Have Been Given to Political Fundraisers?

When it was first publicly revealed that former Attorney General Phill Kline was investigating Mr. George Tiller and Planned Parenthood, both abortion clinics cried foul. At the time, and continuously since, the abortionists have complained that Kline was grossly invading privacy and on a “witch hunt” and “fishing expedition.”

Now we know that the files subpoenaed by Shawnee County District Court Judge Richard Anderson do not contain names and not one patient name has been revealed by the investigation - there goes the privacy claim.

And we know that every judge who has reviewed the evidence has found probable cause to believe that Tiller and Planned Parenthood have committed crimes ( 156 crimes charged so far)- so quite a successful “fishing expedition.”

But what many do not remember is what Kline predicted when the clinics first publicly expressed their concerns about “privacy.” At the time Kline predicted that that patient identities would only be revealed by the clinics, not Kline’s investigation.

The prediction is coming true. First, Tiller has engaged in a public relations effort in which former patients describe their abortions. Stories have run in the LA Times about such abortions. Interestingly, the stories demonstrate violations of state law as, for example, one abortion patient informs the reader she had her abortion because her unborn child was diagnosed with down’s syndrome. Fetal anomaly is not justification under Kansas law for an abortion on a viable child.

But an even greater indication that Mr. Tiller is struggling with the issue of privacy comes from his PAC’s most recent run-in with the Kansas ethics commission. The Commission is considering issuing a fine to ProKanDo, one of Mr. Tiller’s political arms (read news story here).

The Commission reports that the PAC failed to report the identity of hundreds of contributors and instead reporting tens of thousands of dollars in a lump sum contribution from a telemarketing company that ProKanDo hired to do fundraising.

Who did the telemarketing firm call? Most likely, part of the list was Mr. Tiller’s abortion clients. In other words, in words from Mr. Tiller’s website, Tiller provides the names, addresses and phone numbers of his abortion clients to ProKanDo which in turn provides the information to telemarketers. All of this done while Tiller and Planned Parenthood fought to avoid a judges subpoena of records without names claiming a gross violation of privacy.

In 2005, John Hanna of the Associated Press confronted Tiller about the “privacy policy” statement that Mr. Tiller placed on his website. (read story here) The statement read in part:

“Fundraising Communications.
We may contact you to request a tax-deductible contribution to support important activities of Women’s Health Care Services, PA and/or ProKanDo. In connection with any fundraising, we may disclose to out fundraising staff demographic information about you (e.g. your name, address and phone number) and dates of health care that we provided you. If you do not want to receive any fundraising requests in the future, you may contact our Privacy Officer at (316)-684-5108.” (this page of his website is archived at: http://web.archive.org/web/20030623101920/www.drtiller.com/notice.html).

(the site points out another potential problem for Mr. Tiller in that ProKanDo’s activities are likely not tax deductible).

In response to Mr. Hanna’s questions, Mr. Tiller’s staff claimed that the inclusion of the above statement on the website was a simple mistake. Here’s the excerpt from Hanna’s February 2005 story:

“That was actually mistakenly put on there,” she said. Burkhart said Tiller doesn’t disclose the information to fund-raising staff and said she didn’t know how the statement was placed on the site.

The quote is by Julie Burkhart, the executive director of the ProKanDo PAC. Yet, the statement had been on the website for close to two years prior to Hanna’s question. The effective date of the policy is identified on the webpage as follows:

“Effective Date and Duration of This Notice

• Effective Date.
  This notice is effective on April 14, 2003.”

A two year mistake? Unlikely. It is likely that some of the contributions reported as a lump sum from ProKanDo’s telemarketer are contributions obtained from Mr. Tiller sharing his patient lists with ProKanDo which in turn shares the names with the telemarketing firm to raise funds to “support important activities” such as electing prosecutors that will look the other way and give up on investigations of Mr. Tiller.

Unfortunately, Hanna’s story received very little Kansas print media play and zero electronic media coverage. Kansas editors that support abortion on demand, regardless of the law, ensured that Mr. Tiller’s hypocrisy was not exposed.

Further, the same concerns exist with Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, although their use of the private information of their patients is even more brazen - it is still on their website (follow this link to the Planned Parenthood privacy statement). It reads:

“Fundraising Activities

We may use health information about you to contact you in an effort to raise money for our not-for-profit operations. Please let us know if you do not want us to contact you for such fundraising efforts.”

And so, as Planned Parenthood continues to claim privacy concerns regarding records that do not contain names, the organization continues to reserve the right to give out the name, address and phone number of women who have had abortions at their clinic to telemarketers.

This inconsistency has been pointed out to the Kansas City Star numerous times and the Star’s refusal to report these facts is probably what allows Planned Parenthood to be so brazen.

At one point, Planned Parenthood was asked about the statement by a reporter. Planned Parenthood replied that the organization was required to include that statement in their privacy statement by federal law, specifically HIPAA.

This is true, but only if Planned Parenthood actually does provide the names to fundraisers. HIPAA’s requirement only requires disclosure of intended uses of the records. If the records were not to be used for fundraising, then it was not necessary to make such a disclosure under federal law. Accordingly, Planned Parenthood making the disclosure is an admission of their intent to use the records for that purpose. The reporter, however, accepted Planned Parenthood’s explanation and refused to do a story.

It will be interesting to see if ProKanDo claims a constitutional right to privacy to prevent disclosure of the names of its contributors. Appearances, however, already indicate that Mr. Tiller and Planned Parenthood are more than willing to disclose the names of their patients to third party fundraisers, while at the same time fighting tooth and nail to prevent disclosing evidence of potential crimes when privacy is not at issue because patient names are not requested. And it also appears that the Kansas print media and editorialists are more than willing to continue to applaud the abortion organizations as great protectors of privacy despite the clear and evident duplicity of such a claim.

As Attorney General, Phill Kline presented evidence to a Shawnee County District Court Judge in an effort to obtain a subpoena of abortion records from a Wichita, Kansas clinic operated by Dr. George Tiller. Mr. Tiller, a pathologist by training, is one of the few physicians in the nation to perform late-term abortions on healthy viable fetuses.

After reviewing the evidence, the Judge found probable cause to believe that evidence of crimes were contained in the Tiller clinic files and issued the subpoena. At Mr. Kline’s request, the court would receive the records and then remove patient names in order to protect patient privacy. The patients were not under any investigation, only Mr. Tiller was being investigated.

Kansas law provides that an abortion late-term on a viable child (one that is capable of living away from the mother at the time the abortion is performed (generally the last trimester) can only be performed if “two doctors find the mother would suffer substantial and irreversible damage to a major bodily function” if the abortion is not performed. This law is one of the most strict late-term prohibitions in the nation and the langauge has been upheld by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992).

Regardless, Kansas still led the nation due to Mr. Tiller’s activities. Once Mr. Kline obtained the Tiller clinic records (after names had been removed and a multi-year legal battle in which Mr. Kline and the Judge who issued the subpoena were sued) Mr. Kline hired Dr. Paul McHugh, the long serving Chairman of the School of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University to review the files.

Mr. Kline hired Mr. McHugh because, as later criminal charges demonstrated, Mr. Tiller was performing late-term abortions on viable fetuses for mental health reasons. Mr. Tiller would diagnose “temporary episodic depression,” “adjustment disorder,” and “anxiety disorder.” Mr. Tiller would call such conditions “permanent and irreversible damage to a major bodily function” and perform the abortion. Mr. Kline wanted Dr. McHugh’s opinion regarding whether such conditions were permanent and irreversible and whether the diagnosis was justified by the medical evidence in the file. Mr. McHugh’s opinion on both counts was an emphatic no.

Dr. McHugh in the videotaped interview you can view on this page, states that none of the abortions performed by Mr. Tiller were justified under Kansas law.

Dr. McHugh states that Mr. Tiller would find irreversible damage to a major bodily function of the mother in instances where the mother wanted a late-term abortion because she did not want to have to hire a babysitter in the future so she could attend rock concerts. Another example cited by Dr. McHugh is the desire to go to a prom.

In December of 2006, Mr. Kline, as Attorney General, filed 30 criminal counts against Mr. Tiller for illegal late-term abortion. Before filing the charges, Kansas law required Mr. Kline to present his evidence to another judge, this one in Wichita, where the law required the judge to review the evidence and determine if charges should be filed.

Sedgwick County District Court Judge Eric Yost reviewed Kline’s evidence and found probable cause to believe that Mr. Tiller committed the crimes alleged and the charges were filed. Judge Yost’s finding represents the second judge to issue a probable cause finding regarding Mr. Tiller.

The following day, however, in an extraordinary development, Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston, on her own and without any notice to Mr. Kline, found a separate traffic court judge who, without reviewing the evidence, dismissed the charges. Ms. Foulston convinced the judge that the Attorney General does not have legal authority to file such charges despite the fact that Kansas law recognizes the Attorney General as the state’s chief law enforcement official.

Mr. Kline filed emergency motions to reinstate the charges arguing that his office had the legal authority and in the alternative that even if such authority did not exist - Mr. Kline stated that he consulted with Ms. Foulston prior to filing the charges and she consented to the AG’s office pursuing the case.

Kansas law is clear that if a District Attorney grants permission to the AG, that the AG has full authority to proceed with a case. Ms. Foulston claimed to have never met with Mr. Kline and denied Mr. Kline’s claims.

Ms. Foulston’s office visitor’s log, however, shows that Mr. Kline did in fact meet with Ms. Foulston for a solid your prior to the filing of charges.

Mr. Kline filed an emergency appeal of the dismissal to the Kansas Supreme Court. Mr. Kline, however, had been defeated in his re-election bid having been savagely attacked and grossly outspent due to millions of dollars of abortion monies supporting his opponent, Democrat Paul Morrison, who promised to end “Kline’s witch hunt” when he became Attorney General.

As Mr. Kline was leaving office, he appointed a special prosecutor to continue his appeal and his efforts to reinstate the Tiller charges.

Upon being sworn in as the state’s 42nd Attorney General, Mr. Morrison promptly fired Mr. Kline’s special prosecutor and then later dismissing Kline’s appeal and ending the charges against Mr. Tiller.

Mr. Morrison then sued Mr. Kline and the judge who originally issued the subpoenas in a remarkable effort to return all evidence of criminal activity by Mr. Tiller back to Mr. Tiller. Mr. Morrison did engaged in a similar lawsuit against Mr. Kline and the same judge in conjunction with Planned Parenthood which was also under investigation by Mr. Kline. Mr. Kline moved from Attorney General to Johnson County District Attorney effectively switching jobs with Mr. Morrison.

Mr. Morrison had been a long serving Republican District Attorney in Johnson County, a Kansas City suburb and the largest county by population in Kansas. Mr. Morrison was recruited to run against Mr. Kline by avidly pro-abortion Democrat Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius. Mr. Morrison switched his party affiliation to Democrat and then defeated Kline. Mr. Morrison, however, had to vacate his District Attorney’s job mid-term to assume the role of Attorney General. Since Mr. Morrison was originally elected District Attorney as a Republican, Kansas law provided that Republican precinct committeemen and committeewoman would elect his successor to fill out his term - and in early December, 2006 they elected Mr. Kline. Accordingly, on January 8, 2007, Mr. Kline and Mr. Morrison simply switched jobs.

In various legal proceedings, which are still not public, Mr. Morrison worked to stopped Mr. Kline’s investigation while Mr. Kline sought to proceed with the investigation. Mr. Morrison was brought under legal pressure to acknowledge the evidence of crimes and in June of 2007 Mr. Morrison announced he would file 19 criminal charges against Mr. Tiller. Mr. Kline had predicted Mr. Morrison would do so and then seek to settle the charges with a slap on the wrist for Mr. Tiller and that Mr. Morrison would refuse to continue to investigate any of the more substantive charges uncovered by Mr. Kline.

Mr. Kline’s prediction appeared to be correct as Mr. Morrison called his own charges against Mr. Tiller as “hyper-technical,” refused to engage in any further investigation and continued his lawsuits against Mr. Kline and the judge in order to retrieve and return to Mr. Tiller and Planned Parenthood any evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

Additional extraordinary developments, however, removed Mr. Morrison from the Attorney General’s office. In December of 2007, the Topeka Capital-Journal newspaper broke involved an illicit affair Mr. Morrison had with his former office manager. (read story here)

The office manager, who worked for Mr. Morrison in the District Attorney’s office, remained in that office to work for Mr. Kline after the job switch. Among her allegations, were claims that Mr. Morrison attempted to manipulate the woman in a manner to undermine Kline’s investigation. One week after the story broke, Mr. Morrison announced he would resign as Attorney General.

Kansas law gives the Governor the authority to appoint some one to fill Mr. Morrison’s term and she appointed democrat activist, former trial lawyer and appointed Judge Stephen Six to fill Mr. Morrison’s term. Mr. Six has continued to refuse to engage in any further investigation of the Kansas abortion clinics, despite clear indications of illegality, but appears to have taken a more professional approach to the existing charges against Mr. Tiller. Mr. Tiller is still charged criminally, although the more serious charges filed by Mr. Kline and supported by the McHugh video have not been reinstated.