ACORN Redux

Actually, the target this time is Planned Parenthood. I'm sure you've heard the stories about how Planned Parenthood is profiting from selling fetal tissue and organs from all the gazillions of abortions they perform every year, based on videos released by a group calling itself "Center for Medical Progress".

At any rate, since PPH is an organization that provides healthcare to women, and especially poor women, the usual suspects -- meaning the teabagger Congress and the "Christian" soldiers -- are all over it. Everyone's investigating Planned Parenthood.

But, funny thing about that:

Videos released by anti-choice groups claims that Planned Parenthood is participating in illegal fetal tissue sales, but Planned Parenthood states that the only compensation for fetal tissue donation is for expenses, and those programs are only in two states.

“Although donation of fetal tissue is lawful under the Abortion Control Act and federal law, our review has found that Planned Parenthood facilities in Pennsylvania do not participate in this practice,” Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Karen Murphy wrote in a letter to a state legislator. “Moreover, there is no evidence that any Planned Parenthood site in this Commonwealth is involved in the buying or selling of fetal tissue.”

Murphy said that she’s never found a “violation … regarding the procurement or use of fetal tissue.”

Pennsylvania is the fifth state to investigate and find no wrongdoing on PPH's part.

And, guess what (Via Crooks and Liars.)

An expert report submitted to congressional leadership today, concludes that the secretly recorded and heavily edited videos, released about Planned Parenthood and life-saving fetal tissue donation ‘significantly distort and misrepresent’ actual events. . . .

Collectively, the five videotapes of Planned Parenthood staff have at least 42 splices where content is cut and edited together to make it appear to be a seamless conversation.

In some cases, these splices completely change the meaning of statements. On one video, a Planned Parenthood staff member’s remarks about lab protocols were edited to make it sound like she was talking about changing abortion procedures. Phrases on the tape were isolated and removed, stringing together unrelated sentences to change the meaning.

Anti-abortion activists used the doctored “quote” to support false claims that she was talking about changing how an abortion would be done, and the “quote” was published by mainstream media as if it were real.

On one tape, a Planned Parenthood staff member in Colorado says 13 separate times that any arrangements related to fetal tissue donation need to be reviewed by attorneys and follow all laws – and all 13 are edited out of the video.

On another tape, a Planned Parenthood staff member in Texas says nine separate times that there is no “profit” related to fetal tissue donation – and all nine are edited out of the video.

And of course, the "liberal press" has been repeating the lies ad nauseam.

Now, if you think that this report is going to have any effect on the Republican leadership, you really should know better -- the House Witch Hunt Committee has got to justify its existence somehow, and Benghazi!! is so 2014. And don't count on the Democrats to grow a pair.

I suspect, however, that the guardians of America's morals are not going to find PPH such an easy target. Several states have tried cutting off Medicaid funding for PPH -- but it's against federal law.

"Longstanding Medicaid laws prohibit states from restricting individuals who have coverage through Medicaid from receiving care from a qualified provider," Lori Lodes, spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told AP in an e-mail. "By restricting which provider a woman could choose to receive care from, women could lose access to critical preventive care, such as cancer screenings."