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An undercover video taken by the Center for Medical Progress shows Dr. Deborah Nucatola, the senior director of medical services at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, talking about selling body parts of babies after they’re aborted. In the video, she met with investigators posing as representatives from a “Fetal Tissue Procurement Company” for lunch on July 25 of last year.

“Every provider has had patients who want to donate their tissue and they absolutely want to accommodate them,” she began. “They just want to do it in a way that is not perceived as, ‘This clinic is selling tissue, this clinic is making money off of this.’”

“A lot of people are looking for hearts these days,” she said. “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”

“I’d say a lot of people want liver,” she adds. “And for that reason, most providers will do this case under ultrasound guidance, so they’ll know where they’re putting their forceps.”

She also talks about pricing: “You know, I would throw a number out, and I would say it’s probably anywhere from $30 to $100 (per specimen) depending on the facility and what’s involved.”

Nucatola also described how partial-birth abortion procedures help keep the baby parts intact.

“And with the calvarium [the baby’s head], in general, some people will actually try to change the presentation so that it’s not vertex,” she continues. “So if you do it starting from the breech presentation, there’s dilation that happens as the case goes on, and often, the last step, you can evacuate an intact calvarium at the end.”

The video also shows a “tissue order form” from StemExpress.com which lists 40 different “organs and tissues” from unborn babies as old as 20 weeks for purchase, making that baby worth $1200 to $4,000 to Planned Parenthood. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood, which bills itself as a “trusted health care provider,” has raked in $27,835,050 so far this year.

According to the US Criminal Code, the buying or selling human body parts is a federal felony while the commercial trafficking of body parts from an aborted baby is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and/or a fine of up to $500,000. House Republicans have called for hearings into the issue.

“Planned Parenthood is actually allowed, is my understanding, for scientific research, to use fetal tissue and that is not illegal,” said Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat and member of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus and sponsor of many abortion-rights bills.

“Having talked to the leadership at Planned Parenthood, this was a sting operation,” she added.

California Congresswoman Barbara Lee, another prominent supporter of abortion rights and Democrat also dismissed the latest attacks against Planned Parenthood.

“They’ve been attacking Planned Parenthood for years,” she said. “They’ve been calling for investigations for years, and they surface videos and they come on the attack…and I think it’s outrageous.”

It’s truly evil that when a ‘fetuses’ heart and liver can sustain life outside the mother’s womb, it’s considered simply ‘viable tissue,’ while still in that womb.

Iran and the U.S. have reportedly reached a nuclear deal. The agreement’s seen as a major ‘victory’ for President Obama by his administration.

On the other hand, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t hold back when reacting to the deal, calling it “an historic mistake for the world.”

“Far-reaching concessions have been made in all areas that were supposed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability,” he explained. “In addition, Iran will receive hundreds of billions of dollars with which it can fuel its terror machine and its expansion and aggression throughout the Middle East and across the globe.”

Earlier, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest refused to answer whether the administration would agree to lift an embargo on conventional weapons sales to Iran as part of the deal, saying instead that any deal will trade relief from “sanctions applied due to (Iran’s) nuclear program” in exchange for Iran “taking steps” to draw down its nuclear program.

However, while speaking from the White House, Obama claimed the deal meets “every single one of the bottom lines” made in a tentative agreement struck earlier this year.

“Every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off,” Obama claimed. “This deal is not built on trust. It is built on verification.”

The deal also sets up a possible showdown between President Obama and Congress, where lawmakers could take issue with several provisions, including giving Iran leverage over inspections. The deal gives Iran an upper-hand in process.

The agreement requires the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to “ask Iran’s permission first,” after which Iran has 14 days to decide whether to grant it. If not, the IAEA would have another 10 days to make their decision about what to do next.

The set-up gives Iran 24 days to drag out the process. It also sets up a possible showdown between Obama and Congress, which has 60-days to review the agreement.

Congress would need two-thirds majorities in both the House and Senate to override the agreement. For his part, Obama has already threatened to veto any attempt to stop the deal.

This deal’s all about Obama’s legacy, at the price of danger, as the Doomsday Clock continues to tick forward with only three-minutes left before, “destroying our civilization with dangerous technologies of our own making,” according as The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

The Las Vegas Sun reports that the Bureau of Reclamation put out a bid in June for 41,600 rounds of hollow-point ammunition and 10,400 rounds of shotgun ammunition. But the bureau will not say why.

Anyone familiar with firearms, target shooting etc., knows you don’t purposely go to the range to train for accuracy using hollow points. Yes, they can be used for such — but generally cheaper full-metal jacket rounds are typically used for training.

Hollow points have one specific job — destroy the shooter, because they generate a larger diameter to inflict massive tissue damage and blood loss. The ammo is reportedly being paid for by revenues generated from utility companies that buy electricity from Hoover Dam.

“We want to limit the amount of information any bad guys might have about our protection capabilities,” explained spokeswoman Rose Davis, insisting that law enforcement officers are “there for the protection of employees, visitors and the dam.”

Davis did not, however, provide specific information about the number of armed official at the facility, but as of 2008 there were 21 officers policing the area for the bureau, according to a Department of Justice review. U.S. Congressman Mark Amodei of Nevada plans to further investigate the ammunition request and the size of law enforcement presence at the dam.

Amodei was one of 17 GOP congressmen to sponsor a bill that would have prevented certain agencies from using or purchasing weapons. The bill failed to pass.

The bureau, which works with the Department of Homeland Security to make sure the dam’s secure, has requested to purchase ammunition no fewer than 19 times since 2008, most recently making a large quantity demand in 2013. In addition to the bureau, which operates in Nevada out of its Boulder City office, the Las Vegas police department is also called upon to handle Hoover Dam security.

Hoover Dam’s most recent publicized threat was in 2012, when an unarmed man drove his truck past a security checkpoint, prompting an hour-long standoff with officials. In April 2014, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his supporters faced off with the Bureau of Land Management after a federal judge authorized that agency to remove his cattle from public land.

In April it the Department of Homeland Security requested the purchase of 63 million rounds of ammo typically used in AR-15 semi-automatic rifles. The contract included 12.6 million rounds per year for five years.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration’s cutting 40,000 military personnel from U.S. defense ranks over the next two-years – so no wonder people are suspicious.

“Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate,” writes Tom Goodwin, senior vice president of strategy and innovation at Havas Media.

“Something interesting is happening,” he adds.

While something of interest is happening to business via the Internet, none of it does much for the U.S.’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or the U.S.’s mounting debt.

The percent of GDP debt hit its peak in 1945 and 1946, when it was 104 percent and 106 percent. In 1953, at the height of the factory economy, manufacturing accounted for more than 28 percent of America’s GDP.

Employment in manufacturing peaked in 1979, when nearly 20 million Americans worked in the sector. That figure had shrunk to 11 percent by 2009 with around only 12 million manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that by the end of 2015 the U.S. government debt held by the public will be 74 percent of GDP. That’s higher than the 69 percent of GDP debt the U.S. government had in 1943.

Furthermore, the CBO projects the debt held by the public will increase to 103 percent GDP that by 2040. The projected increases are based in mandatory federal spending for entitlement programs including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare subsidies.

The current debt held by the public is someplace north $13 Trillion and the debt existing between the different government agencies is over $5 Trillion. That equals a debt of more than $18 Trillion.

Without the manufacturing of real products and the export of the same – the U.S. is soon to look like Greece – a nation sinking in a sea of red ink and relying on a bailout from other nations.

Stop trying to make things perfect.
The real world doesn’t reward perfectionists.
It rewards people who get things done.

Recently, I visited my insurance agent, whose office is located in a building that used to house a country radio station I worked for back in the 90’s. While I cannot recall the stations call letters, I do remember the several times one or two of the windows in our offices were shattered by a foul-ball from the stadium across the street.

The memory got me to thinks and eventually researching some history of the place.

Moana Springs sits along a subterranean thermal belt which passes through eastern California and western Nevada. Located on the Haines Ranch, south of Reno, the property was purchased by Charles T. Short, Al North and John N. Evans n the summer of 1905 with the idea of putting up a resort.

Short had spent some time in the Hawaiian Islands in 1904 and had stayed at a resort by the name of Moana Springs, and that’s how the place got its name. Work on the bath house and the clubhouse got under way in August 1905 and opened on October 29, with a hotel opening a year or so later.

The Nevada Interurban Railway, a trolley line owned by Louis W. Berrum, began service to Moana from the Reno city limits southward along Plumas Street in October of 1907. Berrum eventually became a stockholder in the springs and well as owned an adjoining ranch.

The springs and trolley both shut down in 1911 following a disagreement between the partners, with Berrum finally buying out every one in early 1913. The acquisition meant that Moana Springs would stay in the Berrum family for the next forty-years.

Moana had a dance hall, a movie theater, baseball diamond, ice skating and boating facilities and a picnic grounds. The site was also the home of school parties, circus performances, rodeos, trap-shoots, baseball games and other sporting events.

Jim Jefferies trained at Moana Springs in the early summer months 1910 during for his attempt to regain his heavyweight boxing crown. Three years later, Jess Willard fought at the resort, two years before he became heavyweight champion of the world.

Following World War II Louis Berrum Jr. began promoting baseball, opening a new stadium in 1947 which hosted the Reno Oilers, Reno Silver Sox, Reno Blackjacks, Reno Padres, Reno Chukars and Reno Astros. Less than a decade later, the City of Reno purchased the property and in December 1957, the original buildings were demolished.

My son, Kyle was six or seven when he and his step-brother’s little league baseball team were publicly introduced before the start of a Silver Sox game. They handed out commemorative mini-baseball bats to all the kids that day – yeah – children with weapons.

The Triple-A Tucson Sidewinders, a farm team for the Arizona Diamondbacks, relocated to Reno in 2009 to become the Reno Aces. The Aces and the city built a new state-of-the-art stadium in downtown Reno, rendering Moana Stadium useless.

In 2011, plans were drawn up to demolish the stadium and nearby Moana Pool in order to build several public soccer fields and a new city pool and aquatics center. Parts of the stadium were auctioned off in April, 2012. The demolition was completed in July 2012.

In October 2012, the City of Reno voted to return Moana Park’s name to it original name of Moana Springs.

As Albert Einstein stated, “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”

All three outages came one after another: one of the nation’s biggest airlines, its largest financial news publication and its main stock exchange. But were they really ‘glitches’ or were they something more serious?

The New York Stock Exchange said their troubles were due to a technical issue – adding it was not the result of a cyber-breach.

“The issue we are experiencing is an internal technical issue and is not the result of a cyber-breach,” a statement said. “We chose to suspend trading on NYSE to avoid problems arising from our technical issue. NYSE-listed securities continue to trade unaffected on other market centers.”

In response, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at an early afternoon press briefing: “There is no indication that malicious actors were involved.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson also tried to allay fears, saying, “It appears from what we know at this stage that the malfunctions at United and at the stock exchange were not the result of any nefarious actor.”

He added, “We know less about the Wall Street Journal at this point except that their system is back up again as is the United Airline system.”

The Wall Street Journal’s homepage displayed an ‘Error 504’ message meaning it was suffering from a satellite-link outage. Prior to Wall Street’s problems, United put a hold on international flights for two hours due to what the airline later claimed to be “an issue with a router.”

Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland confronted FBI Director James Comey saying, “I don’t believe in coincidences. Is the FBI investigating these as breaches?”

“We’re not big believers in coincidence either,” Comey replied, “We’ve been in contact with all three companies to see what’s going on. We don’t see a connection to a cyber-breach or cyber-attack.”

But there’s at least one possibility missed among the various headlines. At 11:45 p.m., the night before the NYSE experienced a shutdown of trading; the hacker group Anonymous left a cryptic message on Twitter: “Wonder if tomorrow is going to be bad for Wall Street…we can only hope.”

Move along – nothing to see here.

“From the motif in westerns where the wind blows tumbleweeds through the scene, usually to establish that the place is desolate or empty…a period of dead air or stony, unresponsive silence,” explains Wikipedia about a ‘tumbleweed moment.’

Documents have surfaced from October 2010 about a meeting between Lois Lerner, the Department of Justice and the FBI on how to develop the prosecution of targeted nonprofit organizations. Judicial Watch confirms the IRS gave the FBI 21 computer disks containing 1.25 million pages of information from more than 113,000 tax returns.

Lerner, a former IRS official, was at the center of past allegations that the agency had targeted conservative groups applying for 501(c)(4) nonprofit status. More than 6,000 Lerner emails thought to be lost were turned over to the Senate Finance Committee in April.

“One IRS prosecution would make an impact and they wouldn’t feel so comfortable doing the stuff,” Lerner said in a 2013 email.

The goal was to stop the flow of other conservative non-profits, opposed to President Obama’s agenda, from applying for tax exempt status and therefore becoming more effective. Congress launched a probe into the IRS in 2013 after the inspector general released a report saying officials had subjected conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status to additional scrutiny.

When Congress voted to find her in contempt and referred her to the DOJ for prosecution, the DOJ, refused to prosecute. We now know why.

As reported by Judicial Watch, the document from IRS Exempt Organizations Tax Law Specialist Siri Buller to Lerner referenced a meeting with the DOJ’s Criminal Division and the FBI about the “possible criminal prosecution of nonprofit organizations.”

Another document shows there were ideas from “Lois” on how the IRS could revoke or change “an organization’s exemption retroactively if it omitted or misstated a material fact or operated in a manner different from that originally presented.”

“We discussed the hypothetical situation of a section 501(c)(4) organization that declares itself exempt as a social welfare organization, but at the end of the taxable year has in fact functioned as a political organization,” the memo reveals.

Other documents states: “Lois stated that although we do not believe that organizations which are subject to a civil audit subsequently receive any type of immunity from a criminal investigation, she will refer them to individuals from CI who can better answer that question. She explained that we are legally required to separate the civil and criminal aspects of any examination and that while we do not have EO law experts in CI, our FIU agents are experienced in coordinating with CI.”

The documents also show how the Obama’s IRS developed plans to get a hold of documents forbidden under federal tax law. One email goes as far as showing there was a request asking that copies of employee statements to Congress be provided to the DOJ first: “If any of your clients have documents they are providing to Congress that you can (or would like to) provide to us before their testimony, we would be pleased to receive them.”

Between 4 p.m. Thursday, July 3, and 3:30 a.m. Monday, July 5, 82 people were shot on the streets of Chicago, with 14 dying. Even with a 30-percent increase in the number of police on the streets gun violence was out of hand, with one illegal handgun being confiscated per hour across the city during the same time period.

For the same period in 2014, there were 64 shootings, 69 nonfatal victims in those incidents and 15 slayings. In 2013, 12 people were killed and nearly 75 injured during the four-day holiday weekend. Independence Day fell on a Thursday last year.

Syracuse University’s track data on enforcement of federal gun laws in 2012 found that “out of 90 jurisdictions in the country, (Chicago) ranked 90th.” A 2011 Chicago police analysis found 90 percent of murder victims in the city are men, 76 percent of victims have prior arrest records, and the most common ages of killers are 17 and 18 years old.

Since the 70s, Chicago and its surrounding municipalities have taken a national lead in enacting firearms control legislation. Citizens’ groups like the Committee for Handgun Control, formed in 1973 and renamed Illinois Citizens for Handgun Control in 1982, have worked pass some of the nation’s toughest gun control laws.

In 1981 the suburb of Morton Grove became the first municipality in the U.S. to ban the sale, transportation, and ownership of handguns. In 1982, the city of Chicago instituted a similar a ban, barring civilians from possessing handguns except for those registered with the city before the enactment of the law.

The law also specified that handguns had to be re-registered every two years or owners would lose their handgun. In 1994, the law was amended to require annual re-registration.

Also in 1982, Mayor Jane Byrne and the city council began to hold hearings on an ordinance banning the sale and registration of handguns in Chicago. The ordinance passed making Chicago the first major U.S. city to enact a handgun ban.

Since the outset of the Chicago handgun ban, the percentage of Chicago murders committed with handguns has averaged about 40 percent higher than it was before the law took effect.

Soon other suburbs began passing gun control legislation. In the fall of 1982, Evanston banned handguns; Oak Park did the same in 1984 followed by Highland Park in 1989.

In June of 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban. Because of the decision, Chicago and the other municipalities came under pressure to change their laws.

Soon handgun bans were repealed in the suburbs of Wilmette, Morton Grove, Evanston, and Winnetka. However, the city of Chicago and Oak Park kept their laws in effect.

A map provided by the Chicago Sun-Times shows the majority of the shootings from this weekend happened in the Oak Park and Chicago area. The Sun-Times also ran a “deflection” story with the headline: “For its size, Milwaukee had an even more violent holiday weekend.”

Two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the handgun bans of Chicago and Oak Park to be unconstitutional. And a month later a new Chicago city ordinance took effect that allowed the possession of handguns, but with heavy restrictions.

Residents were required to get a Chicago Firearms Permit. To get the permit they had to complete a firearms training course, pass a background check including fingerprinting, and pay a $100 permit fee.

Furthermore, possession of firearms was permitted only inside a dwelling, not in a garage or on the outside grounds of the property. And only one gun at a time was allowed to be kept in a usable state.

That same July, Oak Park amended its ordinance to allow handgun possession in one’s home, leaving no remaining town in Illinois that completely banned handguns.

In 2013, Illinois enacted the Firearm Concealed Carry Act, which set up a permitting system for the concealed carry of firearms. Another provision of this law is state preemption for “the regulation, licensing, possession, and registration of handguns and ammunition for a handgun, and the transportation of any firearm and ammunition”.

This invalidated Chicago’s requirements for gun registration and for an additional permit for the possession of firearms.

Chicago City Council soon repealed the law requiring the registration of firearms and the law requiring a city issued firearm owners permit. They also changed the law to allow the carrying of firearms on the grounds of one’s property outside as well as inside the home.

So why don’t law-abiding Chicagoan’s shoot back at criminals? Simply put — fear.

Following the state’s 2013 passage of its concealed carry act, Chicago’s Police Chief Gary McCarthy threatened: “I don’t care if they’re licensed legal firearms — people who are not highly trained — putting guns in their hands is a recipe for disaster. So I’ll train our officers that there is a concealed carry law, but when somebody turns with a firearm in their hand the officer does not have an obligation to wait to get shot to return fire and we’re going to have tragedies as a result of that. I’m telling you right up front.”

“For six years the brainiacs at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union have devised one bailout and debt restructuring scheme after another,” writes the Washington Time’s Stephen Moore. “None of them have worked.”

Let’s try and make sense of what’s happening in Greece and how it’ll affect the U.S.

Greece’s crisis began in late 2009 and is getting worse now that the country voted not to repay their creditors. More than 61-percent voted “no” on austerity measures and other overhauls that European and International Monetary Fund officials had demanded.

Despite ongoing financial struggles, Greece spent nearly 60 percent of its gross domestic product on government benefits and programs in 2013. Because of this, their private economy shrank as government bureaucracy and ‘handouts’ expanded.

The current ruling Syriza party see’s the rejection of creditors’ demands as a ‘win.’ The collaboration of Social Democrats, Democratic Socialists, Marxist–Leninist, and Maoist claim they can now press creditors for a ‘better’ bailout deal with fewer ‘painful’ fiscal measures and ‘more’ debt relief.

But it may prove a hard sell because it’s being seen as proof that Greece doesn’t want to repay its loans at all. And because of the recent ‘no’ vote, the IMF insists debt restructuring’s needed first to make Greece solvent again.

And the situation will get worse as Greece’s European Central Bank (ECB) bonds become due. Greece must repay a $3.9 billion bond held by the ECB on July 20, and another large ECB-held bond that falls due August 20.

Officials say how the ECB reacts to the bond default depends on if there is progress toward a financing agreement between Greece and other governments. If there is, then the ECB is likely to continue supporting Greece’s banks, but if the ECB cuts Greece off, the result is a run on Greek banks.

This is where the water gets muddy for those well versed in ‘social economics,’ but who have trouble balancing a simple checking account: The ‘run’ will affect Portugal, Italy and Spain (who are all in the same financial shape as Greece,) creating a ripple effect across Europe. Its predicted that this same ‘ripple’ will affect the U.S. equity markets first then the U.S. bond market, but the average American will hardly notice it – save for a “slight dip in their 401(K)’s.”

However, these same ‘social economists’ are willfully forgetting that with the Obama administration’s Federal welfare spending continuing to grow in both the private and corporate sectors, the U.S. is well on the road to joining Greece in financial ruin.