September, 28 2017, 11:45am EDT
Dan Lipinski Is Lying About Planned Parenthood and His Constituents Aren't Having It
Rep. Dan Lipinski (IL-3) blatantly lied about Planned Parenthood's services at a town hall earlier this year when he said a "Planned Parenthood's is largely about abortions." His lies were met with boos from his constituents, including one woman who yelled, "This is not true. It's reproductive health services."
WASHINGTON
Rep. Dan Lipinski (IL-3) blatantly lied about Planned Parenthood's services at a town hall earlier this year when he said a "Planned Parenthood's is largely about abortions." His lies were met with boos from his constituents, including one woman who yelled, "This is not true. It's reproductive health services."
FACT: Planned Parenthood is one of the nation's leading providers of high-quality, affordable health care for women, men, and young people, and the nation's largest provider of sex education. One in five women have relied on a Planned Parenthood health center for care in her lifetime. When Rep. Lipinski said that "Planned Parenthood is largely about abortion" (2:08 mark of this video), he was flat-out lying to his constituents.
FACT: First of all, no federal funding goes toward abortion. Planned Parenthood receives Medicaid reimbursements, just like hospitals and other health care organizations, for providing preventive care. Planned Parenthood does receive Medicaid reimbursements from services provided. That helps Planned Parenthood health centers see 2.4 million patients, who collectively receive 9.5 million services.
- Around 615,000 Pap tests & breast exams
- 2.8 million birth control services
- More than 4.2 million STI & HIV tests and treatments
FACT: The majority of Planned Parenthood's work is preventive care such as birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing and treatment. Planned Parenthood health centers are also proud to provide access to safe and legal abortion. Below is a percentage breakdown of services (national numbers):
- STI Testing and Treatment: 45%
- Contraception: 30%
- Other Women's Health Services: 14%
- Cancer Screening and Prevention: 7%
- Abortion Services: 3%
- Other Services: 1%
Rep. Lipinski has also claimed Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) can replace Planned Parenthood, a claim that has been refuted by health experts including the executive director of the American Public Health Association who called such claims "ludicrous." And recently the Washington Post wrote an in depth piece refuting Walberg's lies. Yet, he continues to repeat them.
When asked for a list of providers in his district he presented a list of 10 addresses, no names of providers or organizations. The list contained a dentist office, administrative facility, family medicine centers (no women's health option), and offices with limited family planning services.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) is many things to many people. We are a trusted health care provider, an informed educator, a passionate advocate, and a global partner helping similar organizations around the world. Planned Parenthood delivers vital health care services, sex education, and sexual health information to millions of women, men, and young people.
LATEST NEWS
Right-Wing Supreme Court Rules Trump Has 'Absolute Immunity' for Official Acts
"In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law," warned Justice Sonia Sotomayor. "With fear for our democracy, I dissent."
Jul 01, 2024
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled along ideological lines on Monday that former President Donald Trump is entitled to "absolute immunity" for "official acts" taken while he was in office, a decision that liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned makes any occupant of the Oval Office "a king above the law."
Writing for the majority in the 6-3 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts declared that Trump "may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts."
But Sotomayor countered in her dissent that the majority distorted the concept of core constitutional powers "beyond any recognizable bounds," effectively granting Trump the sweeping immunity he demanded as he faces charges for attempting to subvert the 2020 presidential election in a failed last-ditch bid to remain in power.
"When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution," Sotomayor wrote. "Orders the Navy's SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Immune, immune, immune."
"In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law," the justice added. "With fear for our democracy, I dissent."
The New York Timesnoted that the high court "has remanded the case to the federal district court judge overseeing the matter, Tanya Chutkan, to determine the nature of the acts for which former President Trump has been charged—which are unofficial ones he undertook in his personal capacity and which are official ones he undertook as president."
The high court's ruling, which came after months of delays, all but forecloses the possibility of Trump facing trial for election subversion charges before the November presidential contest. The progressive advocacy group MoveOn said the conservative supermajority's decision to punt the case back to the lower court makes the justices "complicit in Trump's plan to delay any legal accountability until after the election."
Two of the court's right-wing justices— Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito—faced calls to recuse from the case but rejected them.
"Donald Trump incited the deadly January 6 insurrection and the MAGA Supreme Court continues to do everything in their power to stop him from facing accountability for attempting to overthrow our government," said Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn Political Action. "Nobody is above the law, especially not Trump. MAGA extremists in Congress and the courts have made it clear there will be no checks or balances on Trump and the only hope for American democracy is the people coming together to defeat him in November."
Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president at Public Citizen, added in a statement that "Trump versus the United States is a fitting name for this case."
"There is no better way to characterize Trump's attempt to upend the Constitution and rule of law as we know it," Gilbert said. "Today's ruling is a blow to U.S. democracy. But it's not a final blow by any means. Trump can and should still be held accountable for his role in the violence on January 6 in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election and stop a peaceful transfer of power."
In an amicus brief submitted in April, Public Citizen noted that the president "has no specific, constitutionally assigned role in the conduct of presidential elections," making "any assertion that a president's authority empowers him to conspire to overturn the result of a valid election and retain power beyond his term in office... absurd."
"Accepting a view of the outer limits of presidential authority that would sweep in a conspiracy to overturn an election and remain in office unlawfully would have exceptionally broad implications and threaten severe damage to our constitutional democracy," the group warned.
Keep ReadingShow Less
After First Round of Voting, Will France's Centrists Drop Out to Stop the Fascists?
Leftist Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon said his party's third-place candidates would withdraw from three-way runoffs to help prevent the far-right from seizing power.
Jul 01, 2024
Leaders of France's left-of-center parties vowed Sunday to withdraw their third-place candidates from runoff races in an effort to prevent Marine Le Pen's fascist National Rally from securing an absolute majority in the country's Parliament.
But will centrist candidates follow suit?
That question became critical following the first round of voting in snap parliamentary elections called by French President Emmanuel Macron last month after his party suffered a stinging defeat in European elections. Macron's decision appears to have backfired in a major way.
Le Pen's viciously xenophobic Rassemblement National (RN) prevailed in round one on Sunday, winning 33.2% of the vote, while the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP)—an alliance of left-of-center parties formed ahead of the snap elections to counter the far-right—came in second at 28%. Macron's centrist Ensemble coalition landed in third with 22.4% of the vote.
The decisive second round will be held on July 7, and efforts to stop Le Pen's party from seizing outright control of the National Assembly likely hinge on electoral cooperation between the center and the left. The Financial Timescalculated that the first round of voting "produced more than 300 three-way runoffs... an unprecedented number, although the final figure will depend on how many candidates drop out."
In races qualifying for runoffs, according to FT, Macron's Ensemble alliance had 95 third-place candidates after round one while the left-of-center NFP had 129.
Speaking to supporters Sunday, leftist La France Insoumise (LFI) leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said his party would withdraw candidates from races in which they placed third and the far-right NR was in the lead—a vow that the heads of other left-wing parties echoed.
"Our instructions are simple, direct, and clear: not one vote, not one more seat for the RN," said MĂ©lenchon.
"The question that should be asked of every Macronist in the next couple days: Does this line extend to La France Insoumise or not? Right now, it's not clear."
The centrists were much less direct about their intentions.
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who acknowledged the far-right is "at the gates of power," said the centrist alliance would withdraw candidates from runoffs if their presence would hinder "another candidate—who, like us—defends the values of the Republic," without specifically saying whether he includes leftist LFI candidates in that category.
"The question that should be asked of every Macronist in the next couple days: Does this line extend to La France Insoumise or not? Right now, it's not clear," France-based journalist Cole Stangler wrote Sunday.
Macron similarly urged voters to back candidates who are "clearly republican and democratic." But as The Washington Postobserved, the French president "has at times portrayed the far-left as equally dangerous as the far-right," raising concerns that centrists could allow the far-right to win close races by splitting votes in three-way runoffs that include candidates from MĂ©lenchon's LFI.
As Reutersreported, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire "ruled out calling on voters to choose an LFI candidate" in a radio interview—a position that one senior Greens member denounced as "cowardly and privileged."
One government minister, Roland Lescure, did explicitly urge "all voters to block the extreme right without hesitation by voting for the best-placed alternative candidate," even if it's an LFI candidate.
"The real danger for France today is an absolute majority National Rally," said Lescure. "And we must do everything to prevent it."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Unprecedented' and 'Very Dangerous,' Hurricane Beryl Explodes Into Category 4 Storm
"The climate crisis is here. This is an emergency. Politicians need to start acting like it."
Jun 30, 2024
Meteorologists, climate campaigners, and extreme weather experts expressed shock and horror Sunday as Hurricane Beryl exploded into an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 storm as it headed into the warm waters of the southern Caribbean with a level of intensification characterized as unprecedented.
The National Hurricane Center on Sunday morning called it a "very dangerous situation" due to "potentially catastrophic hurricane-force winds, a life-threatening storm surge, and damaging waves" for the numerous mainland and island nations in Beryl's path.
According to the NHC, the Windward Islands of St. Vincent, the Grenadines, and Granada will be the first at highest risk from the storm as well as St. Lucia and Barbados. People on those islands and elsewhere in the region were told that all preparations for the storm "should be rushed to completion" without delay.
Weather Undergroundreports that subsequent locations that may face Beryl's wrath later this week could be Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Belize and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, though noted "there's uncertainty in that exact track" of the hurricane as detailed in the following graphic:
Possible storm tracks for Hurricane Beryl. (Source: Weather Underground / wunderground.com)
Citing records going back to 1851, the Washington Postreported Sunday that there "is no precedent for a storm to intensify this quickly, nor reach this strength, in this part of the ocean during the month of June."
Eric Blake, a hurricane expert, said that Beryl on Sunday was "rewriting the history books in all the wrong ways," as he urged people in its path to "be very safe and take this hurricane seriously" as "very few will have experienced a hurricane this strong" on those islands.
"This is unreal," said Nahel Belgherze, a journalist focused on extreme weather. "Hurricane Beryl continues to defy all known logic, now becoming the first June Category 4 hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin. I can't even stress enough just how completely absurd that storm is."
"The climate crisis is here," said the Sunrise Movement in a social media post showing the extreme power and historic nature of Hurricane Beryl. "This is an emergency. Politicians need to start acting like it."
The group took the opportunity to re-share its petition calling on President Joe Biden to "declare a climate emergency" as a way to unlock federal funds and escalate the government's response to the crisis of fossil fuels that are the main driving of surging global temperatures.
In May, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted that the 2024 hurricane season—which officially runs from June 1 to the end of November—would be "extraordinary" and "above-normal," largely due to rising ocean temperatures attributable to human-caused global warming couple with La Niña conditions.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular