Lying Jon Ossoff is Unfit for Office

The most expensive congressional race in U.S. history has again dispelled the myth that conservatives are the aggressors in the moral wars that plague our politics. As Kyle Wingfield of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution recently pointed out, in the race to replace Tom Price in Georgia’s 6th congressional district, it was only a matter of time before Jon Ossoff went after Karen Handel for her brief experience at the Susan G. Komen organization. And like almost every other liberal when it comes to matters involving abortion, Ossoff lied.

The ad uses an OB-GYN corrupted by liberalism—Mindy Fine from Cobb County, Georgia —who falsely claims that Handel “cut off funding for Planned Parenthood cancer screenings when she was an executive at Susann G. Komen.” Fine goes on to say that Handel’s actions in her short stint at the cancer charity as “unforgivable.”

Fine is referencing a much-publicized incident that occurred in early 2012. At that time, Handel—fresh off a failed run for governor of Georgia—was Komen’s newly hired Senior Vice President for Public Policy. In late January of 2012, Komen, the largest breast cancer organization in the U.S., announced that they would not be renewing financial grants to Planned Parenthood. At the time, Komen claimed this was the result of Planned Parenthood being under congressional investigation.

Of course, as they so often do when they sense their “sacred” sacrament of abortion under attack, liberals across the U.S. went full-on donkey-dung crazy (and as I noted at the time, Komen later caved). Most of the blame for ending the grants was laid at the feet of Handel. Article after article, column after column (interesting experiment: do a “custom range” Google search for Karen Handel and Komen for early 2012 and note the liberal outlets that show up) claimed that Handel and Komen were pulling funds that provided tens-of-thousands of “clinical breast exams to low-income and uninsured women.”

Claims of “clinical breast exams” and “cancer screenings” often lead to the oft-repeated lie that Planned Parenthood performs mammograms. This is a lie that refuses to die. President Obama himself repeated the lie on national TV in late 2012. After repeated debunkings by the likes of even the liberals at the Washington Post (and by Handel herself), liberals today, such as those at MSNBC and Senator Chuck Schumer, continue to repeat the lie that Planned Parenthood performs mammograms. As his campaign openly supports the mission of Planned Parenthood, almost certainly the Ossoff campaign is hoping to perpetuate this lie.

In addition, according to various sources, including Handel’s book on the incident, the decision to “cut off funding” of Planned Parenthood was far from Handel’s alone—as the Ossoff ad implies—and had been in the works for years. Komen’s CEO at the time, Nancy Brinker, said, “Karen did not have anything to do with this decision. This was decided by the board level and by our mission.” The Atlanta-Journal Constitution article referenced by the “Unforgivable” ad mentions only internet “speculation” that Handel was even involved in the Komen decision to pull Planned Parenthood grants.

Ossoff’s Handel-Komen lies come on the heels of his national security credential lies. As The Washington Free Beacon noted back in March of this year, “After claiming for months he had five years of experience as a congressional national security staffer with top-secret clearance, Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff has now admitted that he had clearance for just five months.” This lie helped carry Ossoff into his June 20 runoff with Handel.

In addition to his lies, Ossoff also seems to have an issue with commitment. As folks down here in Georgia put it, Ossoff is “shacked-up” with his girlfriend of 12 years. He told CNN, “I've been living with Alicia, my girlfriend of 12 years, down by Emory University where she's a full-time medical student. ... I want to support her in her career and do right by her.” Of course, “doing right by her” would mean marrying her, but again we see, liberals have long had a hard time discerning what is “doing right.”

As I noted a half-dozen years ago, corrupted by the “values” of modern liberalism, the current generation in America is shunning marriage for cohabitation at an unprecedented rate. As sound morality as long taught us—which Mr. Ossoff seems blind to—such irresponsible and selfish behavior by adults is disastrous for children.

According to a recent study by the Brookings Institution, “U.S. children born to cohabiting parents are twice as likely to see their parents’ relationship end compared to children born to married parents.” According to Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect, children who live with their cohabitating biological parents are more than four times more likely to be sexually, physically, or emotionally abused and they are three times more likely to be physically, emotionally, or educationally neglected than children living with their married biological parents.

Unsurprisingly, Ossoff’s “Priorities” page on his campaign website makes little, if any, mention of marriage, families, or children, but he does support the “right to choose” to kill the most helpless and innocent among us. In addition to his campaign lies, when it comes to two of the most important moral issues of our time—life in the womb and marriage—Ossoff fails badly at both. If elected, almost certainly he would support the radical liberal agenda when it comes to what is marriage, what is a human being, what is a male and a female, and so on. Thus, like most every other modern liberal, he is unfit for public office. 

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Komen Suffers Pro-Abortion Extortion

It was inevitable. Only those who are principally opposed to abortion can withstand the onslaught that the left is sure to unleash when there is even the appearance of being pro-life. When Komen for the Cure—the world’s largest breast cancer charity—initially announced that its decision to defund Planned Parenthood was due to the fact that Congress was investigating the nation’s largest abortion provider, it was painfully clear that Komen was not standing on firm ground. One doesn’t need an investigation into Planned Parenthood to discern what they are all about.

Alas, after only about three days of relentless attacks from the Planned Parenthood extortion machine, Komen backtracked and declared “We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.”

This seemed to satisfy many on the left and frustrate those of us who had cheered Komen’s initial declaration. However, some have noted that Komen’s follow-up statement was not necessarily a capitulation. James Taranto reports that “Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, parses the statement for LifeNews and finds it actually reflects no change in policy: ‘We have known and have reported that they are continuing five grants [to Planned Parenthood] through 2012. This is a reference to that. The second clause about eligibility is certainly true. Any group can apply for anything. It does not mean they are going to get anything.’”

Pro-life advocate Jill Stanek notes that “Komen’s apology was careful not to include any commitment to give Planned Parenthood grants in the future. The Komen executive team doesn’t want to, now more than ever.”

It is unclear the direction Komen will take with Planned Parenthood in the future. One thing is clear—money will certainly factor into their decision. Major corporate donors were threatening to end their relationship with Komen over its initial Planned Parenthood statement, and Feminazis such as NOW’s Terry O’Neill were threatening corporations to do just that.

“…corporations like Yoplait, and Dell computers, and New Balance shoes, all these corporations…they’re going to have to move away from Komen,” said O’Neill on the MSNBC’s The Ed Show. As Taranto noted, the campaign against Komen “is analogous to a protection racket: Nice charity you’ve got there. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it.”

Also, time and again Komen was accused of “playing politics.” So much so that, in its follow-up statement, Komen said, “We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.” Komen later added that they would be “Amending our criteria [to] ensure that politics has no place in our grant process.”

Spending millions of dollars lobbying every year, Planned Parenthood is the most politically active organization operating in the most politicized industry within the U.S. Yet, after Komen decided it would no longer fund Planned Parenthood, The New York Times concluded that “Companies like Ford Motor, Dell and Yoplait may not find the same value in identifying themselves with the foundation after its sharp departure from political neutrality.”

Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution called Komen’s original decision “profoundly stupid,” adding that Komen had “taken sides in a fight that was not its own.” You know what’s really “profoundly stupid”? Concluding that Komen was neutral and “apolitical” (to use another Bookman word) when they were funding Planned Parenthood, but “playing politics” when they decided to do otherwise.

Also “profoundly stupid” is to conclude that abortion represents only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services. This is the lie that will never die. The New York Times, Ed Schultz, Ezra Klein, The Boston Globe, et al, parroted the 3 percent nonsense. Of course, the left does this to give people the false idea that Planned Parenthood isn’t all about abortion.

Part of the deception involved in this number is that, when a woman goes into Planned Parenthood for an abortion, there are multiple other “services” that go along with the abortion. Counting these services separately from the abortion is like concluding that, when someone stops at a liquor store and gets 4 candy bars, 3 bags of chips, and 2 packs of gum along with their Crown Royal, only 10 percent of the “services” the liquor store provides involve alcohol. Liquor stores are to alcohol what Planned Parenthood is to abortions.

Perhaps the greatest absurdity in all of this is the fact that Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms. That’s right—all of the bluster over “women’s health,” and there are zero mammograms done at Planned Parenthood clinics. Do you think liberals would be satisfied in this debate if Komen took the approximately $700,000 it donated to Planned Parenthood last year and gave it to crisis pregnancy centers to purchase mammography machines? Nah, me neither.

Copyright 2012, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com