10 OF THE MOST SHOCKING ALLEGATIONS IN THE GRUESOME ‘HOUSE OF HORRORS’ THAT WAS DR. KERMIT GOSNELL’S ABORTION CLINIC (WARNING: GRAPHIC)

Editor’s Note: This article deals with extremely-disturbing themes and subjects. Please be advised. 

The details emerging from Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s murder trial are so gruesome that, based on the descriptions, one would assume they are fictional scenes from a horror movie. However, the reality is that the court case, which continues to expose the details of the alleged murders of at least seven babies, is, according to witness testimony, anything but a concocted tale.

TheBlaze first covered the case back in Jan. 2011, when we reported that Gosnell, 72, a Philadelphia-based abortion doctor, was charged with eight murders. Our coverage at the time, based on an AP report, provides just a brief overview of the horrific allegations:

A doctor who gave abortions to minorities, immigrants and poor women in a “house of horrors” clinic was charged with eight counts of murder in the deaths of a patient and seven babies who were born alive and then killed with scissors, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell…made millions of dollars over 30 years, performing as many illegal, late-term abortions as he could, prosecutors said. State regulators ignored complaints about him and failed to inspect his clinic since 1993, but no charges were warranted against them given time limits and existing law, District Attorney Seth Williams said. Nine of Gosnell’s employees also were charged.

Gosnell “induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord,” Williams said.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell (Photo Credit: AP)

The so-called “house of horrors” was discovered following drug-related complaints. It was in 2010 when the FBI first raided the facility after reports that painkillers were being improperly distributed. But rather than mere pill infractions, what authorities found was far more sinister.

When officials went in, the clinic’s conditions were unimaginable, with fetuses and severed feet reportedly stored without reason inside the establishment — and with blood splattered about. Considering these horrific conditions and the litany of additional details that have emerged since the case began, many are wondering why the media have been so silent on reporting what unfolded at Gosnell’s clinic.

Today, on Fox News, liberal commentator Kirsten Powers charged that there was no excuse for the media’s purported blackout on covering the abortion doctor’s horrific — and allegedly murderous — treatment of patients and their kin.

Considering that outlets generally love stories like this, Powers seemed dumbfounded as to why Gosnell’s purported crimes have gone somewhat unreported, as she noted that the general rule is “if it bleeds, it leads.”

“Whatever your position on abortion is, this is a story of interest to everyone,” she told Fox host Megyn Kelly. “This clinic had not been inspected in 17 years.”

The Women’s Medical Society (Photo Credit: AP)

Considering the lack of coverage (earlier today, we showed just how profound the dearth is), TheBlaze wants to offer readers a recap of some of the story’s most shocking — and important — details. In addition to allegations that Gosnell killed seven babies and one woman died on his watch, here are some of the key, must-know allegations:

1) Gosnell allegedly treated his minority clients with much less respect than his white patients. Considering that he was named, according to the AP, in more than 40 malpractice suits, the clinic head would purportedly perform abortions for caucasian women in cleaner locations (he assumed whites were more likely to complain about him).

2) In addition to the murderous allegations being waged against Gosnell, eight former employees of the clinic have pleaded guilty (some to third-degree murder) and have spoken in great lengths about the terrifying conditions at the clinic.

3) A 15-year-old girl allegedly helped facilitate abortions — including on potentially live babies — at the clinic. Ashley Baldwin, now 22, claims she worked nearly 50 hours per week. Even more shocking, she allegedly helped give women the drugs needed for the procedure — and apparently assisted throughout. Baldwin said that she saw aborted babies move on at least two occasions following abortions (in one instance, she said “the chest was moving”).

4) Gosnell purportedly used untrained and low-paid staff to conduct nearly 1,000 abortions each year. The charge for a procedure in the horrific conditions mentioned? Between $350 and several thousand, depending on how far along the pregnancy was. Prosecutors believe he made millions from the practice. Authorities claim the clinic brought in about $15,000 per day.

5) Speaking of “untrained,” prosecutors claim, according to the Gospel Coalition, that Gosnell is not certified to work in either gynecology or obstetrics.

6) In the grand jury report, the clinic was said to smell of animal urine and blood stains were on blankets and furniture inside of the office. Not surprisingly, sterilized instruments were unheard of inside the establishment. And somehow the state had failed to inspect — or even visit — the clinic since 1993.

7) In March, Adrienne Moton, a medical assistant at the clinic, provided sickening details about her alleged actions at the clinic, claiming that she snipped the spines of at least 10 babies; she said that another worker — and Gosnell himself — did the same. But that’s not the worst part. Moton also claimed that she once killed a baby after it was delivered in a toilet by cutting its neck with scissors. Moton plead guilty and has been in prison since 2011.

8) Another former employee, Sherry West, shared yet another horrifying story. She claims that she was once called to the back room at the clinic, where aborted babies’ bodies were apparently kept on a shelf. Once there, West heard a live baby among the bodies cry out. The screaming child “really freaked” her out, she told the court. “I can’t describe it. It sounded like a little alien,” she said, noting that she previously referred to the babies as “specimens,” because it was easier to mentally handle what was going on at the clinic.

9) Then there’s Robyn Reid’s story. She was only an 87-pound teen when she went to the clinic in 1998. Accompanied by her grandmother, she was looking for an abortion. But once she made it to the office, Reid changed her mind. But Salem-News.com writes that the doctor allegedly forced an abortion on her. ”Gosnell ripped off her clothes and restrained the girl. When she regained consciousness 12 hours later at her aunt’s home, she discovered that an abortion had been performed against her will,” the website reports.

10) “3801 Lancaster” is (warning: graphic) a documentary series that highlights the horror found at the clinic. Many of these claims, among others, are covered by the filmmakers.

TheBlaze will continue to explore this horrific story and will report accordingly as details unfold. You can read more about the clinic here.

THE SCATHING SPEECH THAT TAKES THE MEDIA TO TASK FOR BLACKOUT OF GRUESOME ABORTION TRIAL: IF THE ‘DOCTOR’ USED AN AR-15, YOU BET THEY’D CARE

Kermit Gosnell. (Philadelphia Daily News.)

Ten Congressmen took to the floor of the U.S. House on Thursday to shed some light on the trial of Kermit Gosnell, an abortionist who stands accused of murdering seven newborn infants (allegedly cutting their spines with scissors) and one grown woman.

Among the 10 U.S. lawmakers was Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who says the media has intentionally ignored Gosnell’s “house of horrors.”

“If Dr. Gosnell had walked into a nursery and shot seven infants with an AR-15, it would be national news and the subject of presidential hand-wringing,” said Rep. Smith.

Indeed, that anti-gun advocates like CNN’s Piers Morgan are Johnny on the Spot when it comes to gun violence, it’s difficult to imagine this wouldn’t be a bigger story if Gosnell had used so-called assault weapons

“Will the decades-long major national news media cover-up of the brutality—and violence—of abortion methods ever end?” Rep. Smith continued. “Will Americans ever be told the horrifying details as to how — and how often — abortionists dismember, decapitate, and chemically poison innocent babies?”

Here’s the media blackout of the Gosnell trial summed up in one picture:

Courtesy @jdmullane

The above photo comes courtesy J.D. Mullane, a news columnist with the Bucks County Courier Times and The Intelligencer.

“Reserved media seats Thurs a.m. in Courtroom 304 in Phila where Gosnell is on trial,” Mullanesaid in a tweet on Thursday, adding that the seats had been empty all morning.“On Thursday there were only nine people in the seats, watching the trial, including me,” he later added.

And here’s Rep. Smith’s complete speech [h/t LSN]:

Will the decades-long major national news media cover-up of the brutality—and violence—of abortion methods ever end?

Will Americans ever be told the horrifying details as to how—and how often—abortionists dismember, decapitate, and chemically poison innocent babies?

Will Americans ever be informed by a conscientious, unbiased news media that in the past 40 years, over 55 million child victims have been brutally killed by abortion—a staggering loss of children’s lives that equates to the entire population in England? And that many women have been hurt physically, emotionally, psychologically—and according to the Center for Disease Control over 400 women have actually died from legal abortions.

Will Americans ever be told that of the 55 million children, Planned Parenthood alone claims responsibility for destroying over 6 million babies and that just two weeks ago a Planned Parenthood leader in Florida testified at a legislative hearing on a state initiative to protect born alive infants that even when a child survives an abortion, the decision to assist or kill the born alive infant should be “up to the woman, her family and her physician.” In other words, even if a child intended to be aborted survives the assault, the choice to kill remains—so called after birth abortion. Isn’t that extreme child abuse?

Murdering newborns in the abortion clinic, it seems to me, is indistinguishable from any other child predator wielding a knife or a gun. Why isn’t that that child seen as a patient in need of medical care, warmth, nutrition and dare I say—love?

Now another national media cover up! In this case, even when a Jeffrey Dahmer-like murder trial of an abortionist named Kermit Gosnell, who ran the benign-sounding Women’s Medical Society, unfolds in a Philadelphia Courtroom replete with shocking testimony of beheadings, unfathomable abuse, death, and body parts in jars. To this day, the national news media remains uninterested, indifferent—AWOL. Why the censorship? Gosnell’s “house of horrors” trial fails to attract any serious and meaningful national news reporting.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell is on trial for eight counts of murder. One count is for the death of a woman who died during an abortion at his clinic. Seven counts are for babies who survived their abortion and were born alive but then killed by severing their spinal cords with a pair of scissors.

In the words of the Grand Jury report: “Gosnell had a simple solution for unwanted babies: he killed them. He didn’t call it that. He called it ‘ensuring fetal demise.’ The way he ensured fetal demise was by sticking scissors in the back of the baby’s neck and cutting the spinal cord. He called that ‘snipping.’ Over the years there were hundreds of ‘snippings’.

Indeed, the national news media has not only taken a pass and looked the other way, but their stunning indifference has done a grave disservice to Gosnell’s victims—the woman killed, other women injured and children slaughtered by Gosnell. Because of the national media’s indefensible silence—because of their failure to report—other women and children at other abortion mills might be at risk.

Indeed, the Gosnell Grand Jury Report in January 2011 powerfully noted that an absence of press coverage—and gross negligence by health department personnel in Pennsylvania—enabled Gosnell to show a “contemptuous disregard for the health, safety, and dignity of his patients that continued for 40 years.”

Some media commenters, however, are beginning to take note of the national news media bias and blackout in the case.

Yesterday an editorial in the Investors Business Daily titled Newtown In The Clinic: Media Ignore The Gosnell Trial said

“Media Bias: A basketball coach who shoves and curses at his players merits constant coverage by a media also transfixed by Newtown. But a Philadelphia doctor on trial for murdering a woman and seven babies? It’s ignored.

Those who get their news from the three major networks have probably not heard of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, now on trial in Philadelphia, charged with seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of third-degree murder for killing seven babies who survived abortions and a woman who died after a botched pain-killer injection.

According to the Media Research Center, in one week Rice received 41 minutes, 26 seconds of air time on ABC, CBS and NBC in 36 separate news stories. Gosnell received zero coverage.

If Dr. Gosnell had walked into a nursery and shot seven infants with an AR-15, it would be national news and the subject of presidential hand-wringing.

In today’s edition of USA Today, columnist Kirsten Powers writes:

“Infant beheadings. Severed baby feet in jars. A child screaming after it was delivered alive during an abortion procedure. Haven’t heard about these sickening accusations?

It’s not your fault. Since the murder trial of Pennsylvania abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell began March 18, there has been precious little coverage of the case that should be on every news show and front page.”

She goes on to point out: “A Lexis-Nexis search shows none of the news shows on the three major national television networks has mentioned the Gosnell trial in the last three months. The exception is when Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan hijacked a segment on Meet the Press”

In a letter sent by Media Research Center President Brent Bozell and twenty prominent leaders call on the broadcast networks to stop censoring coverage of the trial, pointing out that as of April 4th, since the trial began ABC, CBS and NBC have given the story zero coverage in their morning and evening news shows.

Again I ask. When will the media blackout stop? Will America ever be told about the brutality of abortion and the violence that is commonplace inside the abortion industry? Or will the media continue to censor this trial of the century, because it exposes an all too inconvenient truth that not only are unborn children destroyed in these killing centers, but that even babies who survive the abortion can’t escape the deadly hand of the child predator.

From The Blaze

STUDENTS ASKED TO ‘ARGUE THAT JEWS ARE EVIL’ AND PROVE NAZI LOYALTY IN ASSIGNMENT LINKED TO COMMON CORE

A screenshot of the writing assignment asking students to argue the Nazi case.

Students in some Albany High School English classes were asked to participate in the unthinkable this week as part of a persuasive writing assignment. The objective? Prove why Jews are evil and convince the teacher of their loyalty to the Third Reich in five paragraphs or less. 

“You must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!” read the description on the assignment, which the school superintendent said reflects the kind of sophisticated writing expected of students under the new Common Core standards and was meant to hone students’ persuasive argument abilities.

The TimesUnion reports that students were asked to digest Nazi propaganda material, then imagine that their teacher was an SS officer who needed to be persuaded of their loyalty by arguing that Jews are the root of all the world’s ills.

“I would apologize to our families,” Albany Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard said. “I don’t believe there was malice or intent to cause any insensitivities to our families of Jewish faith.”

The TimesUnion explains more of the reasoning behind the offensive assignment:

Vanden Wyngaard said the exercise reflects the type of writing expected of students under the new Common Core curriculum, the tough new academic standards that require more sophisticated writing. Such assignments attempt to connect English with history and social studies.

She said she understood the academic intent of the assignment — to make an argument based only on limited information at hand. Still, she acknowledged that it was worded in a very offensive manner. She did not identify the English teacher or discuss whether the educator faced any discipline.

Students were asked to draw on elements of the great philosopher Aristotle, and frame their arguments as either: “Logos” (persuasion by reasoning), “Pathos” (persuasion by emotional appeal) or “Ethos” (persuasion by the author’s character). 

Nonetheless, a reported one-third of the Albany students refused to complete the assignment.

Whether school faculty chose this particular subject matter for the writing assignment, or if the subject matter came directly from Common Core remains unclear (it could have been the justification and not a direct lesson), but the amount of controversial lessons administered under curriculum system is indeed mounting.

FLORIDA SCHOOL DISTRICT RESPONDS TO CHILD’S ‘GIVE UP SOME OF MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS’ ASSIGNMENT: ‘A REVIEW AND INVESTIGATION WILL OCCUR’

Aaron Harvey’s son wrote as part of a school lesson, “I am willing to give up some of my constitutional rights in order to be safer or more secure.” TheBlaze has redacted the child’s name at Harvey’s request.

A school district in Jacksonville, Fla., said Friday it will review and investigate what happened after a father charged that his fourth-grade son was instructed to write that he was “willing to give up some of [his] constitutional rights” as part of a classroom activity.

A local attorney taught a lesson about the Constitution to fourth-grade students at Cedar Hills Elementary School in January. Last week, Aaron Harvey found a crayon-written paper that had been in his son’s backpack that read, “I am willing to give up some of my constitutional rights in order to be safer or more secure.” Harvey’s son told him that his teacher, Cheryl Sabb, had instructed some students to write the sentence after the lesson was over.

The lesson taught by the attorney was part of Justice Teaching, a program started by former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice R. Fred Lewis that puts legal professionals in Florida schools to teach about the American legal system and the Constitution.

“The Justice Teaching activity on constitutional rights that was conducted at Cedar Hills Elementary School is consistent with our efforts to broaden civics-based education and develop critical thinking skills among our students,” Dr. Nikolai P. Vitti, superintendent of Duval County Public Schools, said in a statement to TheBlaze. “The lesson builds awareness of First Amendment rights through a partnership with an association of local attorneys. Our possible concern rests with a follow-up activity that may have been conducted after the lesson. A review and investigation will occur to determine the facts of that assignment.”

According to a description of the lesson provided to TheBlaze, the objective was to teach students about the five rights enumerated in the First Amendment.

Harvey told TheBlaze earlier Friday that school district officials had told him the sentence came during the lesson portion with the attorney, but that his son “wrote it on his own free will.” Harvey said there was “no way” his son wrote that on his own, and said he had heard from his son and at least one other child that the sentence came directly from the teacher.

A Duval County Public Schools spokeswoman identified the attorney who taught the lesson as Carrington Madison Mead, a Jacksonville lawyer. Mead did not immediately return a request for comment from TheBlaze.

‘CLEARLY SKEWED’: EDUCATION COMPANY PULLS CROSSWORD THAT SAID CONSERVATISM IS FOR ‘RESTRICTING PERSONAL FREEDOMS’

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Image source: EAG News

The education company that distributed acrossword puzzle worksheet that saidconservatism was for “restricting personal freedoms” while liberalism was for “equality and personal freedom for everyone” said it is discontinuing the “clearly skewed” product.

Cerebellum Corporation — the distributor of Sunburst Visual Media, which created the crossword and related materials — said in a statement to TheBlaze Friday that it did not have any part in the “production, writing or overall creation of the materials” but apologized for the “unacceptable” content.

“Although we are careful to screen the quality of our products, we are not always able to identify the problems seen in Liberalism vs. Conservatism” Cerebellum president James Rena said. “As a company, we believe in balance. This product is clearly skewed and we find that unacceptable and counter to our culture. We sincerely apologize for this mistake and will rectify it by immediately discontinuing the product.”

Tamra Varebrook, a Republican activist in Racine, Wis., told TheBlaze on Thursday that her eighth-grade daughter showed her the crossword-style vocabulary sheet assigned to her at Union Grove Elementary School. Varebrook described the assignment as “indoctrination.”

The materials and an accompanying DVD were created in 2001, Cerebellum said.

From The Wall Street Journal

The President's Priorities

Debt in 2014 will hit 78.2% of the economy.

President Obama is pitching his new budget proposal as a fiscal peace offering to Republicans, but the details suggest everyone should expect more conflict. The fiscal 2014 plan he released Wednesday is a very slightly modified version of his previous budgets that reduces the deficit by raising taxes and trading defense cuts for more domestic spending.

The real news is that his budget ratifies much of the spending increase of the first term and tries to lock it in. He wants the feds to spend $3.78 trillion next year ($11,944 per American), which would still be 22.2% of national output nearly four years into an economic recovery. Before the financial panic in 2008, the government was spending about $1 trillion less, or closer to $2.7 trillion a year and an average of 20% of GDP—and President Bush was no slouch as a spender himself.

Mr. Obama wants federal spending to grow to $4.45 trillion by 2018 fueled mostly by the exploding costs of his Affordable Care Act. This spending surge appears smaller than it is only because the government will bank large reductions in military spending as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars wind down. But unlike in the 1990s, this peace dividend will be spent.

The budget's supposed bow to Republicans is Mr. Obama's proposal for a modest change in annual cost of living adjustments for Social Security. "Chain CPI," as the change is called, would cut spending by about $130 billion and raises taxes by about $100 billion over ten years. We support the concept, but the White House also slips a mickey into that proposal (see below).

Even with this inflation change, federal spending would grow by more than if Mr. Obama simply let current law continue. This is because the President wants to eliminate the current caps on discretionary spending under the budget sequester that are set to save close to $1 trillion over the next decade. He wants to repeal the sequester that is providing the only spending cuts in at least a decade.

His new spending ambitions include $50 billion for public works, more college aid, high-speed rail (the fiscal version of "The Walking Dead"), green energy giveways, $2 billion more for battery-operated cars even as the companies fail, manufacturing subsidies, full funding of ObamaCare, job training (on top of the current 47 federal programs), and more.

Editorial board member Steve Moore on President Obama’s budget. Photos: Associated Press

In return for the Social Security savings, Mr. Obama is still insisting that Republicans accept most of his tax increases totalling $1.1 trillion over 10 years. This budget is said to be a "balanced approach" with $2 of spending cuts for every $1 of new taxes, but over the next five years federal spending would actually rise by $680 billion. So he is really referring to imaginary "cuts" off of anticipated future spending increases. He also isn't counting the estimated $1 trillion in tax increases over the next decade that are already part of ObamaCare.

So nearly all the deficit reduction would come by raising taxes on the oil and gas industry, hedge-fund managers, smokers, millionaires—and savers with his new tax on the buildup of wealth inside 401(k) plans and IRAs above $3 million.

His new preschool entitlement would be funded by raising the cigarette tax to $1.95 a pack from $1.01 now and from 39 cents when he entered office. Someone should inform the White House that tax hikes on a shrinking group of smokers to finance payments to a growing number of beneficiaries is not a healthy fiscal strategy, as the states have found out by spending the proceeds of the Medicaid tobacco settlement.

Mr. Obama is reproposing the "Buffett tax" on millionaires that would raise the levy on capital gains, dividends and other investment income to 30%. When Mr. Obama entered office the investment tax rate was 15% on capital gains and dividends. This year he raised the rate to 23.8% with the ObamaCare investment surtax. Now he wants 30%. This would raise the effective combined tax on corporate profits to close to 54%, one of the highest in the world.

The one piece of good news is that the overall fiscal picture has improved of late because of record-low borrowing costs, the sequester, and a surge in revenues over the past six months due to higher tax rates (and their anticipation last year). The deficit could fall to about $500 billion next year, which counts as progress given the last five years.

On the other hand, debt held by the public as a share of the economy will continue to climb—to what the White House predicts will be a peak of 78.2% of GDP in 2014. As recently as 2008, U.S. debt was 40.5% of the economy. Mr. Obama has nearly doubled it. (See the nearby chart.) With a modicum of spending restraint and faster growth, the debt burden will start to decline. The danger is that there's no room to avoid Southern European debt levels if we have another recession or an interest-rate spike.

The Obama years have turned much about U.S. politics on its head, such as the fact that Presidents usually restrain Congress on spending. Since 2010, the House has restrained a President who wants to keep spending like it's 2009. The U.S. needs a federal budget that would promote faster growth, but gridlock may be the best we can get.

A version of this article appeared April 11, 2013, on page A16 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The President's Priorities.