Gosnell: The Movie--Trying to Tell the Story of an American Serial Killer Which Strikes Too Close to Home

[L] Ann McElhinney and [R] Phelim McAleer

In 2013, husband and wife veteran filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Anne McElhinney were publicizing their feature documentary Fracknation as the murder trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell was occurring in Philadelphia.  McAleer was amazed at the lack of coverage of a prolific serial killer that murdered two women in botched late term abortions in unsanitary conditions, used a brutal snipping technique to kill a thousand children beyond the legal limit for abortion and also dealt prescription drugs.

Yet the national mainstream media ignored the Gosnell case, dismissing it like a local murder case while lavishing attention on the concurrent Jodi Arias murder trial. McAleer did man on the street interviews in California to learn about what the public knew about sensational murder trials.

As Katherine Graham, the former publisher of the Washington Post, proclaimed: "What we cover and what we don't matter a lot...The power is to set the agenda."  Fox News commentator Greg Gutfeld recently speculated about the reasons why most of the mainstream media (including Fox) did not cover the Gosnell trial closely:

"The reason why they don't do this one is not because the evil is so grotesque.  It's that it's too close to a moral choice they've made.  That's what it's about.  It's not that like, ah it's so hard to do something on this man who butchered babies.  It's because it's too close to the pro-choice mindset."

However, McAleer and McElhinney were so haunted by the Gosnell trial that they backed away from other crowd-source funded projects so as to make a movie about Gosnell.  Yet Anne & Phelim Media encountered more velvet gloved censorship by Kickstarter, which claims to not curate projects but would not allow them to describe their dramatized movie idea as being about a mass murderer who killed a thousand children as it allegedly violated community standards which Kickstart "encourages and (selectively) enforces".  McAleer believes that it is within Kickstarter's right to not facilitate funding but that it should be forthright that it is due to the project matter not a transparent lie about community standards which it does not enforce for sundry other offensive projects.

So they moved their crowd-source funding efforts to Indiegogo, where they have raised $1.2 million  of a fixed target $2.1 million.  If they do not make their designated funding mark by May 12th, the money reverts  back to the prospective investors.

There is already an excellent documentary film 3801 Lancaster, which interviews victims of Gosnell's House of Horrors.  So McAleer and McElhinney want to make dramatized version of the Gosnell story which would run on the Lifetime  Movie Network rather than a feature documentary to reach a wider audience.

 It is easy for seaboard elitists to dismiss a film about Gosnell as just being by religious zealots with pro-life propaganda, which is a touch charge to apply to McAleer and McElhinney. In addition, this dismissive instinct ignores how Dr. Gosnell was a racist as he gave his white patients much better and cleaner abortion services than his clients of color.

A film about Gosnell must also include a political angle.  Former Governor Tom Ridge (R-PA) was elected as chief executive of the Keystone State as a moderate Republican.  The governor's office made it clear that the Commonwealth should do nothing to impede abortion services, so Gosnell's clinic was not properly inspected for 17 years, despite gruesome reports and several deaths. 

Gosnell's clinic was raided because Gosnell was writing prescriptions like a pell mell pill mill for Oxycotin and the ilk.  That raid permitted police to stumble upon an unsanitary abortion butchery, where Gosnell kept severed limbs as trophies.

Hearing the filmmakers promote their project, it is clear that they yearn to tell a compelling true story about a prolific American serial killer and pull back the curtain on details which a progressive public would rather ignore.

Never Forgetting 9/11

Those sentiments honoring the fallen and rescuers can be seen in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrrorist attacks of America as our 43rd President rallied the nation on the burning heap of Ground Zero at the former World Trade Center.

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Federation Law and Klingon Justice

One of highlights of the Museum of Science Fiction's Escape Velocity 2017 Convention was the symposia on the Law and Star Trek. A panel of distinguished lawyers, including a law professor, a partner in a private practice along with a couple of attorneys working in the court system lent their collective wisdom on how legal concepts were applied on The Original Series (1966-1969), The Next Generation (1987-1991), Voyager (1995-2001) as well as several major motion pictures. The discussion consciously avoided the many violations of Star Fleet's Prime Directive, which sought to prevent the imposition of values and technologies by superior space races (i.e. civilization which had achieved warp speed).

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry originally envisioned Star Fleet justice to be meted out as would an  18th Century colonial captain. Under Admiralty Law, the highest in command in an area was the person who wheeled great discretion because of scant communications with Star Fleet Command.  But as Star Trek progressed, it seemed to favor Common Law tendencies to individual rights, guarding due process and being conscientious about justice rather than the blind application of law.

As the session was ending, these words were tested by Klingon Justice. 

[This piece originally was published in DCBarroco.com]

On Paving the American Road to Communism

Recent polling has shown that just over half (55%) of American Millennials believe that communism was or is still a problem. In addition, only 37% of them have a very unfavorable view of communism compared to 57% of the rest of Americans.  Furthermore, 64% of these Millennials say that they agree with the Marxist mantra: "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs".

  

It should be noted that the same millennial class show a remarkable lack of knowledge about  infamous and ruthless communists like Mao Zedung, Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Karl Marx and Cuban revolutionary Che Gueverra (the latter must just be a stylish T-shirt icon)  No wonder many deride the ideologically indoctrinated university students students as young skulls full of mush.

Such astounding ignorance and inclination to "lean forward" must make progressive professors at UC Berkeley and the ilk to party like it's October 1917. 

The Legacy of Dirty Harry and the Reid Rule on Senate Filibusters

A legacy of former Senate Majority Leader  Harry Reid (D-NV) was the effective elimination of the confirmation filibuster.  

Under the Constitution, it is the Senate's duty to confirm Executive and Judicial Branch appointments.  Senate rules allowed for confirmations with mere majorities, but needed to obtain 60 votes to cut off debate (Cloture) and preclude a filibuster.  The Cloture vote was intended to prevent endless obstructionism while still giving the minority some say in the proceedings of the Upper Chamber of Congress.

Needing to get enough votes for cloture was an incentive for Republicans to select more moderate appointees which required Senate consent.  But such Senate niceties stopped political steamrolling by Majorities who wished to exercise their unadulterated will.

When the Obama Administration sought to pack the Court of Appeals for DC (aka the DC Circuit), which is the court of authority for regulatory bodies, it ran into trouble when its candidates might not have received the requisite support for a Cloture Vote.  So then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, exercised "The Nuclear Option".  Exercising the Nuclear Option had been hotly debated in the preceding decade, but then Senate Majority Leader  Bill Frist (R-TN) opted not to circumvent tradition. 

Through Parliamentary legerdemain, Reid established a precedent in which he said that all judicial nominees, save Justices of the Supreme Court, would be considered on majority votes and did not have to pass the Cloture Vote threshold.  

The Reid Rule was great when one's party is in control of the Senate and the White House. But in 2017, President Donald Trump will occupy the White House and Republicans have a two seat majority in the Senate.  Incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer thinks that he can stymie the Trump Administration through the advice and consent clause as well as any Supreme Court nominations which do not represent progressive Democrat values.  However, Schumer may well rue the Reid rule legacy from Dirty Harry Reid. 

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Salem Radio host Hugh Hewitt had an informative colloquy on the Reid Rule.

 Republicans may not moderate their choices for positions which need to be confirmed by the Senate.  Despite Harry Reid's contention that the "Reid Rule" excludes Supreme Court nominees, it is contented that avoiding Cloture for a Supreme Court nomination would simply be a second application of the Reid Rule precedent.