How Many GOPers to Re-edit, Produce, and Market Fake Video: All of Them

Fake ID's, Fake People Get Access to Make Fake Video 

Smearing Planned Parenthood

There are so many moving parts to this story, it's  hard to begin, except I guess at the beginning with some good investigative reporting ... two links regarding that posted below from Reality Check. 

And as usual, Congress wades in and moves quickly with this from Sen. Rand Paul and his anti-choice colleague Sen. Ted Cruz, both 2016 presidential contenders, who have pushed to deny federal funding to Planned Parenthood in recent days over the fake video.

Senate Fast-Tracks Bill to Defund Planned Parenthood

 

That headline and others here from Reality Check. 

The main story and that link are also from Reality Check, here, in part.

Based on a careful review of the tape, as well as documents provided by sources with direct knowledge of the sham company used by the activists — BioMax Procurement Services — RH Reality Check has identified at least three names that appear to have been used as pseudonyms by these operatives. One of these names appears to belong to a childhood acquaintance of the group’s apparent ringleader, David Daleiden.

We can reveal that the full names used by three operatives were: Robert Daoud Sarkis, the alias used by Daleiden, according to multiple sources who met with him at events in California and other states; as well as Susan Tennenbaum and Brianna Allen, both of which appear to be aliases of as-yet unidentified operatives.

Re that: This new evidence obviously raises the question of whether any of this conduct is illegal. Already, California AG, Kamala Harris has announced an investigation into the Center for Medical Progress. Her investigation seems to be geared toward whether the group violated any laws in connection with its registration with the state’s Registry of Charitable Trusts, but she also said her office would look at whether the group had committed “any violations of California law.” According to a California criminal defense attorney, Michael Kraut, there is some reason to believe that Daleiden and his associates may have violated California and federal law on forgery, credit card fraud, and identity theft.

Now to the story at hand: It has been said, many different ways that “… a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants (or boots) on.”

That’s certainly the case with that new and highly deceptive anti-choice propaganda video that claims to show a Planned Parenthood official caught on a hidden camera while allegedly discussing how the women’s health clinics are involved with the harvesting and selling of aborted fetus organs via a sordid underground black market.

In the video, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, is seen eating salad and drinking a glass of red wine as she discusses what the selectively edited video would lead us to believe is the process of acquiring intact organs from aborted fetuses and then selling them to buyers.

Dr. Nucatola appears to describe the most desirable organs, as well as the admittedly disturbing manner by which the fetuses are aborted in a way that doesn’t damage the organs that are to be harvested. She also appears to discuss the prices that buyers pay for a particular fetal organ.

As the late great Paul Harvey took pride in saying, “Now the rest of the story.”

As we’ve seen with similar “gotcha!” videos, this one completely misrepresents what Nucatola was discussing, and numerous sites have almost too-easily debunked just about every claim.

(Full debunking links are here, here, here and here.)

It turns out, Dr. Nucatola wasn’t discussing the illegal black market sale of fetal organs, but instead the perfectly legal donation of the organs to biomedical research laboratories that use the organs to help save lives. The price range of the organs described by Nucatola is, in reality, the reimbursed expenses accrued in the delivery of the specimens. (Which makes sense: $30 to $100 is hilariously below the going rate for human organs.) Furthermore, the video was produced by an anti-choice pop-up outfit called the Center for Medical Progress, which not only claimed that this one video required three years of research, but which also has ties to known video fraudster James O’Keefe.

Yet as rapidly as the video was resoundingly debunked as a fraud, it wasn’t fast enough to catch up with the zealous haste of the lies. As soon as the video hit The Daily Caller and The Drudge Report, it was pretty much game over for the already beleaguered Planned Parenthood. Social media immediately erupted with garment rending and all varieties of unhinged screeching over what too many gullible viewers perceived as the ultimate smoking gun indictment of the organization. Anyone pointing out the obviously deceptive editing and the false claims made by the video were attacked as ghouls, Nazis and baby-killers.

The intensity of the outrage closely matched the degree of the flimflam. Anti-choice activists wanted desperately to believe the video was an accurate representation of what Planned Parenthood is up to behind the scenes, so they overlooked the obvious scare-edits and manipulative soundtrack. 

Clinically speaking, the video is cleverly produced, even though it’s really easy to make abortion sound creepy. That said, it flagrantly exploits the worst and most ignorant aspects of social media: the utter lack of critical viewing, the impulse to rapidly re-tweet clickbait without reading, and especially the internet’s torch-and-pitchfork mob justice.

Congress buried ACORN based on a provably fake video. Planned Parenthood has been relentlessly de-funded due to previously fraudulent videos. Indeed, members of the most powerful governing body in the world spoke on-the-record from the floor of both the House and Senate and permanently attached their names to more than one egregiously fake smear video. Legislation was passed and livelihoods were ruined because congressional Republicans were repeatedly duped by James O’Keefe and his acolytes.

Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee announced they’d hold hearings on the video. How members reacted as well as prominent other GOPers:

“This video is abhorrent and rips at the heart. The committee will get to the bottom of this appalling situation.” (Press release quotes from Republican lawmakers Fred Upton, Marsha Blackburn, Tim Murphy, and Joe Pitts).

The video is endowed with the legitimacy of a congressional committee. Now, several GOP presidential hopefuls have condemned Planned Parenthood for the (misleading) content of the video.

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry: “The video showing a Planned Parenthood employee selling the body parts of aborted children is a disturbing reminder of the organization’s penchant for profiting off the tragedy of a destroyed human life.”

Gov. Piyush “Bobby is only his reel name” Jindal (R-LA) said: “Today’s video of a Planned Parenthood official discussing the systematic harvesting and trafficking of human body parts is shocking and gruesome.” [...]

Former HP CEO, Carly Fiorina said: “This latest news is tragic and outrageous. This isn’t about ‘choice.’ It’s about profiting on the death of the unborn while telling women it’s about empowerment.”

Arguably the worst aspect of this scam video, beyond the harm it will do to reproductive rights and Planned Parenthood, is the reality that Dr. Nucatela’s life is all but ruined for the foreseeable future. At this moment, anti-choice extremists are likely fanning out around the internet, collecting damaging information about her; finding out her home address and contact information; discovering whether she has children and where they go to school; planning rallies outside her house; or worse.  

Based on wrongful charges, Dr. Nucatela now represents Enemy Number One for a certain segment of anti-choice radicals all fueled by visions of aborted fetuses and the false impression of Planned Parenthood as the Walmart of black market fetus organs.  

B/L: It just ain’t true – not from Planned Parenthood – that should be kept in perspective.